Aunt Millie picked up a table lamp and set it right. “At least you didn’t take Mike as an example,” she said.
Carney nodded. He made sure there was no one hiding under the bed or in the closet. “These druggies,” Carney said. “They have to get their sick kicks somehow.”
Gladys from next door appeared with a broom and Carney said he’d ask Marie to pitch in with the cleanup. His aunt and his secretary went to the movies occasionally, when Rock Hudson’s name was above the title. It wouldn’t be terrible to have Marie away from the office. Too many unexpected parties dropping in these days.
He went straight to the store, beeline to the safe. He had feared discovering packets of—what? heroin? reefer—in the briefcase. The emerald necklace was worse; drugs explained themselves. Freddie had stopped coming to Carney to fence jewelry or gold, and he’d never showed up with anything near that quality. Had he and Linus ripped off Linus’s family, taken the literal family jewels, as the cops insinuated? Or was that some separate beef between Linus and his relatives, and Freddie and his friend had ripped off some heavy players who were after payback? Even if Carney returned the briefcase to his cousin and told him to fuck off, he was still in somebody’s sight for being close to Freddie. It was too late: Carney was in.
* * *
*
Munson beckoned from the sidewalk.
Carney locked up the store. It was half past noon. From now on, Rusty and Marie were on paid leave from Carney’s Furniture; opening hours were whenever Carney felt it was safe to leave the front door open. By way of explanation, he blamed the lack of foot traffic after the riot and exaggerated the likelihood of another round of violence. “I’ll see you when things get back to normal,” he told his employees.
It relieved him more than he anticipated to have them safe.
The detective sat on the hood of his dark brown sedan, lighting a Winston with the smoldering end of the previous one. Carney hadn’t seen him in daylight in a long time. The cop was pale and puffier, threadbare from the mileage. His face maintained the record of his boozing, rouged and speckled by popped capillaries. Free meals from local merchants and shady clients had ruined his build.
He was in his customary carefree mood. “I figured you’d be calling,” Munson said. “Why don’t you ride along while I pick up the mail?”
The mail: his recent coinage about his envelope route. “Neither rain, nor sleet,” Munson said as Carney slid into the passenger seat. “Riots though, they’ll throw you off schedule.”
“We’re all in the same boat.”
“You don’t want people to think you have a forgetful nature. I got to collect before they think it’s their money and they spend it.” Munson tilted his head toward the furniture store. “You made it out okay.”
“Most of it was this way.” Meaning, east on 125th.
“Yeah, I was there.” He drove one block and parked outside a hole-in-the-wall newsstand Carney had never stepped in. Grant’s Newspaper & Tobacco, across from the Apollo. For years, the dingy red, white, and blue streamers across the storefront had snapped ferociously on winter-swept mornings, and hung limp on hot days like this.
“Buck Webb on vacation again?” Carney said.
“Yeah, gone fishing.” It was Carney’s standard joke: Where’s Buck? Since Munson’s shakedowns—one assumed—fell outside his official police duties, Carney rarely saw Munson’s partner. Buck was probably off tending to his own envelopes.
Munson said he’d be out in a sec and entered the tobacco store.
The marquee of the Apollo promised the Four Tops, but a big white canceled sign crossed the ticket window. Look at him, sitting in the front seat of a cop’s car. He wondered how many black boys Munson and his cronies had worked over and then tossed into the backseat on the way to the station house. Carney’s fingers slid on the vinyl: EZ wipe. Munson’s line of work was not the kind where you wanted fabric upholstery.
“You ever play in that game?” Munson said on his return.
Carney didn’t know what the cop was referring to.
“Grant—Grant’s son, now—has been hosting one of longest-running craps games in Harlem in the back. You never threw in?”
Carney rubbed his temple.
“One block away and you never got in on it?” Munson said. “No, you ain’t the kind. Grant’s kid told me he kept the game running the whole time of the riot. No one wanted to leave, and when they did, someone was always knocking, trying to get a piece. All hell breaking loose out here, back there business as usual.”