* * * * *
Southern Avenue, with its tiny houses, liquor and convenience stores, and gas stations, depressed me. Most houses had barred windows, reminding me of mini-jails.
Calvin’s Bar was so dark, I had trouble seeing. But my nose didn’t fail me. It smelled like the morning after a frat party—stale beer, cigarette smoke, and bodily fluids assaulted my nose. I held my breath. My eyes adjusted to the low light, and I noticed a few people in booths along one wall. A middle-aged man, round-faced and chestnut-complected, stood behind the bar having a loud conversation with two younger men—and possibly the rest of the neighborhood. At the far end of the bar, one customer, slumped with his head on his arm, appearing not to hear.
“So I told that motherfucker,” said one man in a Dallas Cowboys jacket, “I said, look here, you insult my peoples, you insult me. You gotta step off. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sheee-it. What he do then?” said the smaller man. His pants hung so low, he flashed his Fruit-of-the-Looms to the world.
“He try to get up in my face, but I slapped him around and he back off like the little whiny-ass bitch he is.”
“You lucky he weren’t carrying,” the bartender said.
“That bitch be carrying my size-twelve boot up his ass, if he try that shit wit’ me again.”
Raucous laughter rang out. Little D stepped up to the group. I hung back, a few feet behind him.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Little D’s deep voice carried loud and strong over their laughter. The three men snapped to attention. “Calvin, could I speak to you a moment?”
The Dallas fan and Mr. Ass Crack looked up, then glanced at me. Their eyes met and they snickered. The bartender, who I assumed was Calvin, said, “Who the white girl, D?”
“A friend. I need to speak to you. Alone.”
The men looked Little D up and down. Neither seemed anxious to argue with him, but neither moved.
Calvin flicked his hand and said, “Give us a minute.” They slid off their stools and slouched away.
“Narsh been here?” Little D asked.
Calvin’s gaze darted from me to Little D. “Ain’t seen him lately.”
“You sure ’bout dat?” Smooth as a gunslinger pulling a pistol, Little D dipped in his pocket and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.
Calvin gazed at the fifty like a hungry man eyeing a juicy steak and gestured with his shoulder. “Who wants to know?”
Little D chuckled. “C’mon, Calvin. Don’t start pretending you give a damn.”
“Ain’t a po-lice thing, is it?”
I stifled a laugh. “Do I really look like an undercover cop?” I said. “I blend in here about as well as David Duke at the Million Man March.”
The corner of Calvin’s mouth turned up, then broadened into a grin. “Who are you then?”
“I’m a lawyer, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“You planning on suing Narsh?”
“No.” Not anytime soon, anyway.
“Well . . . .” he said.
Little D waggled the bill at him, ready to withdraw it at a moment’s notice.
“Narsh hangin’ at Choochie’s now,” Calvin said. “Just inside the District line.”
“I know the place.”
“Then you know he might be hard to reach, once you get there. And they ain’t gonna like your friend.”