His Third Wife

“Hurry. Just hurry, Leaf. Please hurry.”

Jamison parked Kerry’s car around the corner from the Rainforest. He’d stopped at his house to get the gun from his nightstand. He thought to change out of the gray suit he’d worn all day since his mother’s funeral, but decided against it. Every familiar car was parked outside the old house with the fraternity bar in the basement. The silver Maserati was up on the grass.

Jamison pulled the gun out and held it behind his back with his hand on the trigger. The lock was off.

He descended the steps into the Rainforest. Kicked the door open and held the gun out in front of him.

No one was in the main room. The usual young bartender was standing guard wearing a fraternity T-shirt. He dropped a towel and a glass he was holding when he saw Jamison. Raised his hands and backed away from the bar.

“How many people back there?” Jamison asked lowly, shifting his eyes from the back hallway, where the doors leading to the bathroom and bedroom were shrouded in a blackness he couldn’t see through.

“Three,” the boy said nervously. “I don’t want trouble. I’m in school. My father’s—”

“Get out of here!” Jamison charged. “Get the fuck out of here.”

The boy backed out of the bar with his hands up, facing Jamison. He started running as soon as he hit the basement steps.

Jamison thought he heard something coming from the corner where the old papier-mâché palm tree was now leaning against a wall. He pointed the gun at it and found nothing but dusty green leaves.

He crisscrossed slowly down the hallway with his gun pointed out, listening for footsteps or voices, anything behind or in front of him as he penetrated the darkness.

At the door to the bedroom where Dax had been held weeks ago, he heard men laughing heartily, talking in tones of victory.

“Militant X turned to straight bitch when he saw that steel. Begging for his life. What am I supposed to do with that?”

While Jamison had been waking from the original wrath that engulfed him when he’d heard the news about his friend’s death and he was finally seeing where he was going and what he was doing with clear eyes, this bragging brought the vehemence back—and with more register.

Jamison took a deep breath and kicked the door open. There were two loud bangs as his shoe hit the

wood and the door swung open wide to hit the wall inside the room.

The men inside stood fast. One tried to hide. Two went for their guns. But Jamison’s barrel was in perfect position to commit to the swiftest action.

“Don’t fucking move,” he hollered. “Nobody fucking move!”

Six hands went up. Under the dim light Jamison saw Emmit, Keet, and Scoot. Keet was in a black hooded sweatshirt with his badge at his waist. Scoot and Emmit were in suits with their shirts unbuttoned halfway down, ties missing.

Jamison stepped deeper into the room, ordered everyone against a wall.

“Calm down, son. Think about what you’re doing,” Emmit tried in the wise voice he’d always summoned in Jamison’s presence.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jamison said, waving the gun to signal for the men to get in line on the wall.

“What are you going to do? Kill us all?” Keet said, and he was almost laughing, but still moving.

“That’s the plan,” Jamison said, closing the door behind him with his loose hand.

“We can work this out. Figure this out. If you tell us what you need,” Scoot said.

“I want the truth. Before I kill all of you, I want the fucking truth,” Jamison said.

“What truth, son?”

“I’m not your son, Emmit. You stop calling me that. Just tell me who killed Ras, which one of you did it?”

Scoot looked at Keet from his place against the wall.

“What the fuck? I killed him,” Keet said. “I don’t care. I ain’t scared of this nigga and his gun. Because he ain’t gonna use it. Are you? Come on. We can play this game and line up, but you ain’t gonna shoot nobody. Too far from the SWATS for that. Right, Mr. Mayor?”