“No. Face to face. Here, in the city. Today. Tell him if he says yes we’ll meet on his terms. If he says no, we meet on my terms.”
I crack the knuckles on one hand. “He’ll want to say yes.”
“Let me see what I can do,” Abe says.
“We can meet somewhere right off of the rail line so he’s not too inconvenienced. He’s not getting any money or favors. What I’ll do in return is not sell him out to the two gangs he screwed or the six bangers who got hard time over his testimony.”
Abe laughs. Again, with some mirth this time: “Let me see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Abe calls while I’m driving.
That shitbag Buster Ford can meet after dinner at the Cake Hole, a donut shop a block off of the rail. Fine.
“Buster wants you to bring him a gift,” Abe says.
“I’ll think of something,” I say. I hang up, immediately see what I’m looking for and pull off into a strip mall parking lot. I walk into a low-rent hip-hop clothing store. Above the door in colorful, graffiti-influenced script a sign reads: Saint Ansgar Phat Urban Styles. So be it. The few patrons and the clerk eyeball me as I come inside. I sift through the racks and pull out my phone.
The clerk steps over to a spot at the counter that effectively shields his waist and hands from me. He keeps looking down at the glass-top counter and the items inside on display as if that’s fooling me at all. With his head tilted down, his eyes continue to roll up, snatching glances my way. Maybe he saw my iron under the jacket. Might be a bulge. Even with my wingspan it’s hard to tuck a large frame Magnum caliber revolver into a shoulder holster. Oh well.
If he gives some kind of signal to the other patrons then I’ll know it’s time to take aim and back out of the store slowly. I turn one eye to the clerk. He knows I’m watching him.
A patron stops browsing and walks towards the door. He shoots eyeball glances to the clerk. The more I think about how that guy was looking at merchandise the more I think he wasn’t looking at all. As if he knows the racks inside and out because he’s been studying them for hours and hours while he waits for a guy like me—a guy who don’t belong in these parts—to come inside and shop.
As he walks to the door he’s got his left hand holding his pants up. As he browsed he was using his right hand to shift through the clothing. I’m guessing that’s his dominant hand. He might need to hold his pants up because the goddamn things are strung so low his belt is cinched around the knees. Or it might be because tucked away inside there is a firearm he’ll want to grab with his dominant hand.
When the time comes. Which, my piggy sense tells me, is coming fast.
Another patron steps off the floor and through a backdoor. Gone. I look around openly. It’s now just the clerk, the doorman and I. Doorman moving to my back. The clerk waiting for me to walk up to buy something.
I select a T-shirt. Look out to the street. The road outside is busy enough with daytime traffic that, in this part of town, only looks ahead. Some of that is because there is nothing of value to look at roadside unless iron bars, graffiti and the homeless are captivating.
The other reason no one looks around is because, quite simply, they don’t want to see what’s happening.
I walk to the counter. Toss the T-Shirt on it. Look at the clerk, who has a barely perceptible sheen of sweat across his brow. His eyes go from me to the door. Me to the door. He doesn’t notice it but he shifts his weight from one foot to the next, back and forth. Nerves. Maybe he’s new to the game. Maybe the last time they did this it went south. Maybe he doesn’t want me to be the target. Let me see what I can do to further that notion.
“I see the price tag says fifteen bucks,” I say. “I’d like to make a deal with you.”
“No deal, bro,” the clerk says. “Fifteen dollars is fifteen dollars. Plus tax. Then you leave.”
“Hold on, now. How about I walk away with the T-shirt and in exchange for that, I don’t disarm your friend at the door and beat him ugly with his own gun. Sound good?”
“Price just went up to twenty. Pay up or get out.” His voice trembles in a way that most folks wouldn’t pick up. This kid is nervous, but barely. What he wants is for me to go to the door. The doorman must be the alpha male here. Probably why, in this little strong-arm racket these punks are running, he’s the doorman. He must be the stone cold one. The clerk here, he’s a tagalong.
“Okay.” I leave the shirt on the counter and walk towards the entrance. The doorman is nowhere to be found. I step outside and as soon as I do a voice from behind me says, “Hands out. Go back in.”
I stop. My hands go out. The traffic across the street has a red light. My car is twenty feet away. I don’t move to go back in and I hear the doorman step forward. One big, close-the-gap step. The gun touches my back just enough to say hello and then disappears. Doorman steps away. Opens up. Out of reach.
“Folks down here know better than to get involved,” he says. “You shout
for help, I hit you. You wave your arms, I hit you. You waste more time out here, I hit you. Getting hit with a gun hurts, bitch.”
Tell me about it.
“Now, what you’re gonna do is what I told you to do. Turn around, and go back inside. If we stay out here any longer, I’m gonna get mad.”
“Okay.”