Deacon King Kong(65)

“Take that and git gone.”

“Do I get the flagpole?”

“Can a donkey fly?”

Lightbulb seemed confused but didn’t speak at first, then asked, “Does that mean yes?”

Bunch ignored that. “You want a chicken wing on your way out?”

Lightbulb, flummoxed, found it suddenly hard to breathe. “So I don’t get the flagpole?”

“I’ll think on it.”

“I done told you everything like I said I would. What do I get now?”

Bunch shrugged. “You get two hundred dollars. You can get a lot with that. Some soup. A bottle of beer. Some poontang. Even get a job with it in some places. I don’t care what you get, so long as you stay out my business. And if I ever see your face here again, I’ll part it with a hammer.”

Lightbulb’s eyes widened. “What’d I do wrong?”

Bunch turned to Earl. “He rats his own boy out. Rats out the guy who gave him his own rice and beans in the joint. The guy who gave him food from his own mouth practically. And he comes to me saying he wants to work for me?”

“Dig thaaaat,” Earl said. He stood, menacingly.

Lightbulb, watching Earl out of the corner of his eye, slid his hand over to the money on the table. Bunch’s hand suddenly slammed down on his.

“Need I remind you, young brother, to forget us?”

“No.”

“Good. Because we will not forget you. Now git.”

Lightbulb snatched the two hundred dollars off the table and fled.

After the front door closed, Bunch shrugged and reached for the newspaper. “We’ll get back every penny of that dough. He’s skin popping now.”

“Dig thaaaat.”

Bunch shot an irritated look at Earl. “You mucked it up, man.”

“I can fix it,” Earl said.

“You had three shots at it already. You get your head banged in twice, then get shocked like a clown. You’re like the Three Stooges, bro, with a bag full of excuses. You made it worse.”

“You said don’t kill him. Killing and hurting’s different. You hurt a guy, you gotta make so he can’t see you, so he can’t rat. Taking him out is—”

“Something I ain’t asked you to do, bro.”

Bunch reached for a chicken wing, dipping it in the sauce and chewing slowly as he scoured the newspaper. “The game’s changed, Earl. I should’ve watched Deems closer.”

“Lemme even it out, Bunch. It’s my load. Let me carry it.”

Bunch wasn’t listening. He had placed the newspaper down and was staring out the window. There was so much to think about.

“Peck says this big shipment from Lebanon is coming soon. He says he’s got a dock for it. But that idiot’s so dumb he lights up a room by leaving it. And now this crap with this old motherfucker who shot Deems. If we can’t shake up an old drunk, how the fuck we gonna run Peck’s operation?” He shook his head, biting his bottom lip angrily. “All my luck is junior grade.”

Earl felt the same way. He sat in silence, studying his fingers atop the crossword puzzle. His nerves felt as if they were sitting on a razor blade. He’d already been collared twice by that white cop, Potts, who’d promised him he’d look the other way when the cops dropped the hammer on Bunch—if he flipped on Bunch, which Earl had agreed to do with trepidation. But now, sitting before Bunch, he realized he’d underestimated Bunch’s cleverness and forgotten the power of his rage, which seemed to ooze off him. If Bunch found him out, he was cooked. That suddenly seemed a possibility. Worse, the old woman from the Cause had recognized him as Reverend Harris’s son. His father, he felt, was torturing him from the grave.

“I can straighten out the old man,” Earl said.

“Don’t need to,” Bunch said matter-of-factly. “There’s a nine-thirty train coming in tonight from Richmond. Take my car down to Penn Station in the city and pick up Harold Dean. You can do that without mucking it up, can’t ya?”

“We don’t need Harold Dean!”

“You think I’m running a summer camp? If Deems convinces Peck to sell to him instead of us, we’ll be buying our groceries with Green Stamps, brother. We’re done. Nobody will sell to us. Not Roy and them Italians out in Brighton Beach. Nobody from the West Side. Nobody in Harlem. It’s the Elephant’s dock or nothing. Peck’s the only one who’s still got a line to the Elephant. If Deems convinces Peck to go with him, then he’s got the Elephant’s dock, too, and we’re outta business. Deems has got to go. And Peck. We got to flatten things out, get everything back to zero, before that Lebanon thing comes in. I’ll talk to the Elephant myself. But first let’s get rid of the old man. What’s his name?”

“Something . . . Sport Jacket, they call him.”

“Whatever the fuck he is, he got to be put to sleep. Now. Get off your spine and get Harold Dean. Make sure Harold Dean does the old man first. Nobody in the Cause has seen HD; that one will be quick and easy.”





15





YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S COMING



Dominic Lefleur of Building 9 spent days apologizing to Bum-Bum for starting the fight at Soup Lopez’s coming-home party. He “accidentally” ran into her on three separate occasions as she went about her business. The first time she was coming out of Five Ends. She had gone inside to place a few cans of beans in the pantry, and when she emerged he happened to be outside, which gave him the opportunity to explain that the doll he tried to give Sportcoat was not bad luck.