Deacon King Kong(21)

“This fucking city,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Earl said, not trusting himself to speak further.

Bunch ignored that, his mind churning. “The cops won’t bother with Deems,” he said. “There’s not a peep about the shooting in the papers. Not even the Amsterdam News. The Jews in Queens is hot news now. And the riot in Brownsville.”

“What riot?”

“Don’t you read the papers? Last week a kid got shot out there.”

“White kid or black kid?”

“Bro, is your head soundproof? It’s Brownsville, nigger!”

“Oh yeah, yeah, that’s old news,” Earl said. “I read that. Wasn’t he robbing an old man or something?”

“Who cares. The riots draw all the cop muscle from the Seventy-Sixth Precinct. That’s good for us. We need the cops to stay there till we straighten out our business in the Cause. Tell you what: Call up my Steak N Go shop and tell Calvin and Justin to take the day off. Tell them to get flowers for the family, and cake and hot coffee. Have ’em take that stuff out to wherever the riot and protesters are meeting, wherever their headquarters is. Probably some church. Tell ’em to bring some chicken, too, now that I think on it.” He chuckled bitterly. “No ideas flow through them Martin Luther King Cadillac types till they get some chicken. Call Willard Johnson to help set it up. He’s still over there, ain’t he?”

“Will called last night.”

“About what?”

“Said he was a little short on money from that . . . whatever that thing is. The city thing we doing, the poverty program thing . . .”

“The Redevelopment Authority?”

“Yeah. He needs a little dough. For office rent and electric. Just to help him over the hump.”

Bunch snorted. “Shit. The only hump that nigger is interested in got thighs like Calpurnia. He likes them big country girls.”

Earl was silent as Bunch began to pace. “I gotta tie up that business at the Cause Houses. Tell me more about the guy who shot Deems.”

“Ain’t nothing to him. Some old guy got drunk and shot him. A deacon at one of them churches out there.”

Bunch stopped pacing. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“You ain’t ask.”

“What kind of church? Big church or little church?”

“Bro, I don’t know. They got fourteen churches for every man, woman, and child in the Cause. Some little nothing church, I heard.”

Bunch seemed relieved. “All right. Find the guy. Find his church. First we deal with him. We gotta choke him hard or we’ll have every dope slinger in South Brooklyn pushin’ in on our corners. Make it look like a mugging. Steal his money if he got any. Cut him a little. But not too hard. We don’t wanna get his church people in a snit. After that, we go to the church as the Redevelopment Authority and say how sorry we are about all this crime and horror in our community and so forth. We cool ’em out by buying ’em some choir books or Bibles and promise them some redevelopment city money. But we gotta straighten out that old guy first.”

“Why don’t we let the kid out there take care of him? He says he can.”

“From his hospital bed?”

“He’s home now.”

“I can’t run my business waiting for some kid to pull his Band-Aids off. Go over there and take care of the old man, before the Brownsville thing gets cold.”

Earl frowned. “That ain’t our territory, Bunch. I don’t know all the players over there. Ain’t that what we paying Joe Peck for, him being our supplier and all? He got the cops over there in his pocket. He knows everybody over there. Whyn’t you call him?”

Bunch shrugged. “I did. I told him we’d take care of it ourselves.”

Earl tried to hide his surprise. “Why?”

Bunch glanced at the window, then decided to take a chance. “I got a plan to get clear of him. Get our own supplier.”

Earl was silent for a moment, contemplating. That was not the kind of information Bunch passed on lightly. It put him a little deeper into Bunch’s thing. He wasn’t sure if that was exactly good or safe—safe being the operative word. “Peck is Gorvino family, Bunch.”

“I don’t give a fuck if he’s George Washington family. The Gorvinos ain’t what they used to be. They don’t like Peck no more anyway,” Bunch said.

“Why not?”

“He’s too wild.”

“Dig thaaaat,” Earl said, ignoring a hot glance from Bunch. He was distracted. He needed time to think this one through, because he didn’t know what to say and he felt himself sliding into the hot seat. The Cause Houses made him nervous. Other than making money and dope drop-offs once a week, he was a stranger in those projects. He fingered his chin thoughtfully. “Even if the Gorvinos are souring on Peck, there’s the Elephant to deal with. A brother could end up in the harbor wearing cement shoes fucking with the Elephant. Remember Mark Bumpus? He crossed the Elephant. What was left of him got tossed in the harbor without instructions. I heard they picked him out the water in pieces.”

“Bumpus was a hardhead. A smuggler. The Elephant don’t traffic in dope.”

“Yeah, but he got the docks.”