Deacon King Kong(81)

“What you talking about?” Deems said. An idea was forming in his head. He glanced at Beanie, who was still laughing, and at Phyllis, who had wandered over. He pointed in the direction of the park, several blocks away. “Baseball field’s that way, Sausage,” he said.

“Can I speak to you private a minute?” Sausage asked.

Now Deems smelled a rat. He glanced around. The dock was empty save Beanie, the new girl Phyllis, and Sausage. Behind them, the empty paint factory lay dark. Sausage, despite his inebriation, seemed nervous and was breathing hard.

“Come see me tomorrow. When you ain’t drunk. I’m busy here.”

“It won’t take long, Mr. Deems.”

“Don’t Mr. Deems me, motherfucker. I hear you talking about me at the flagpole. You think I’m sitting around sucking eggs while you sneaking Sportcoat about? If it wasn’t for my granddaddy, I’da knocked your teeth out two weeks ago. You and Sport. You two old-bag motherfuckers, starting up shit . . .”

“Gimme a minute, son. I gotta tell you something. It’s important.”

“Open your talking hole then. Go ’head.”

Sausage seemed terrified. He glanced at Phyllis, then at Beanie, then back at Deems.

“It’s private, Deems, I’m telling you. Man to man. It’s about Sportcoat . . .”

“Fuck Sportcoat,” Deems said.

“He wants to tell you something important!” Sausage insisted. “In private.”

“Fuck him! Get the fuck outta here!”

“Show some respect for an old man, would ya? What have I ever done to you?”

Deems thought it through quickly, checking off boxes in his mind. His crew was at the flagpole. Chink was in place. Rags was in place. Stick had a crew of kids on the roofs. Beanie was there with him, packing heat. He was packing heat himself. Lightbulb was . . . well, in place, and far distant and no threat and was a problem that would be dealt with soon. He glanced at Phyllis, who was dusting off her pretty rear end. She took a step back toward the empty paint factory.

“I’ll go away for a minute,” she said. “You can talk.”

“Naw, girl, stay here.”

Hot Sausage said to Phyllis, “I think it’s best you go.”

“Git off her, Sausage!”

“It’s just a minute, Deems. Please. Gimme a minute in privacy, will ya? For God’s sake, boy! Just a minute!”

Deems lowered his voice, enraged now. “State your business right now, or I’ll knock every Chiclet outta your mouth.”

“All right,” Sausage slurred. He glanced at Phyllis, then said, “Sister Gee . . . you remember her?”

“Out with it, motherfucker!”

“Okay then!” Sausage cleared his throat, swaying drunk, trying to control himself. “Sister Gee come by the boiler room today when me and Sport was there having a . . . taste, y’know. She said the cops been asking lots of questions. She come upon some information from one of them cops that she gived to Sportcoat. He wanted you to have it.”

“What kind of information?”

“Somebody’s coming to get you, Deems. Someone bad.”

“Tell me what I don’t know, old man.”

“Somebody named Harold Dean.”

Deems sucked his teeth and turned to Beanie. “Beanie, get him the fuck outta here.” He turned away and suddenly noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a movement to his right.

The girl.

She had stepped away from him, and in one smooth motion she slid her arm into her leather jacket, pulled a .38 short-nose Smith & Wesson, aimed it at Beanie, and pulled the hammer on it. Beanie saw her and tried to reach, but he wasn’t fast enough. She dropped him, pivoted to Hot Sausage, who was backing away, and popped him once in the chest, which sent the old man reeling to the deck. Then she turned the gun on Deems.

Deems, standing at the dock edge, leapt backward into the harbor when he saw the light wink from the eye of the Smith & Wesson. When he struck the water he felt his ear, still healing from Sportcoat’s blast, burning, then the cool waters of the East River surrounding him, then an explosion of pain bursting out of his left arm, the pain seeming to paint his whole body, which felt as if it were ripping apart. He was sure his left arm was gone.

Like most kids who grew up in the Cause Houses, Deems had never learned to swim. He’d avoided the filthy harbor and the projects pool, which was used mostly by the white residents from the surrounding neighborhood and was policed by cops who discouraged the projects kids. Now, in the river, he flapped his hands uselessly and reached out desperately with his right hand. As he did, he swallowed a gulp of river and heard a splash of someone landing in the water near him and thought, Oh shit, that bitch jumped in. Then he went down again, and for the first time since he was a child, in the darkness of the water, he found himself calling on God, asking for help, pleading, Please help me, swallowing more water and panicking as he flailed. Help me now, God, and if I don’t drown . . . God, help me please. Every lesson he’d learned in Sunday school, every prayer he’d uttered, every pain he’d felt in his young life, every sorrow he’d caused that stuck in his craw and nagged his conscience, like the gum he stuck under the pews of Five Ends Baptist Church as a kid, felt like they had risen up in a swirl to create a necklace around his neck that choked. He felt the current grab his legs, toss him to the surface, where he took a desperate gulp of air before it snatched his legs and pulled him down again—for good this time. He couldn’t resist. He felt himself being gently sucked away by the current and was suddenly exhausted and could no longer fight back. He felt urgency seeping from his feet, and felt blackness coming.