Delroy slipped out. Chink asked the bartender, “You got all their names?”
“Sorry?”
“The names of those motherfuckers out there ain’t paid for their drinks?”
On occasion, even a longtime flunky is at a loss for how to deal with a capricious and sadistic boss and will struggle for the right response that will not get him killed. How serious was he? The request was ridiculous, yet within the realm of Chink’s whim. Pepper took advantage of the man’s sudden awareness of his mortality by vaulting from the chair. The bartender had dipped his gun forty-five degrees and Pepper figured he had an opening. He was correct. He rammed the bartender into the filing cabinets, where the two men struggled before tumbling to the floor. The bartender was skinny but strong, and grappled like one of those South Brooklyn motherfuckers, his thumbs creeping across Pepper’s cheek after his eye sockets. Fucker. Pepper heard a desk drawer slide open—he only had a moment before Chink grabbed whatever he was reaching for. The bartender’s gun went off. The bullet eliminated two of the bartender’s toes. Pepper relieved him of the gun and shot him twice in the belly.
When he raised the pistol and pointed it at Chink, the gangster’s hands were in the air. “I told this bitch to keep this shit orderly,” the mobster said. “Can’t find anything in here.”
Pepper directed Chink away from the desk. Keeping an eye on the mobster and alert for Delroy’s return, he rummaged after the weapon in that top drawer. Chink was right. It was a mess, and no way to conduct business. He discovered the .38 and slipped it into his jacket.
Chink glanced at the door to the lounge. Pepper pulled back to the center of the room to position himself for the endgame, whether it originated from Chink or the bodyguard.
“I made her,” Chink said. “Her whole story.”
Pepper never did figure out where the knife came from. A secret pocket, standard-issue in the man’s suits since his prime knife-wielding days. If Chink hadn’t been softened by his long reign—and his palpable melancholy—perhaps the knife might have penetrated Pepper’s throat, for that’s where he aimed it. By the time the gangster withdrew the blade from his jacket, Pepper had fired. The gangster had a tell—a widening of his bloodshot eyes. Good for warning his men he was serious, but a bad habit in other confrontations. The knife buzzed past Pepper’s ear like a mosquito and Chink collapsed against the back wall. Gutshot. Sirens outside, plenty of noise to cover the sound—Pepper decided to shoot Chink Montague twice more.
Pistol smoke braided itself to the ceiling. Pepper’s headache piped up again, that lead ball hopping on the wheel. Dizzy. He had to remind himself of who he was, where he was, and why he had come here. Pepper. His parents hadn’t named him that because they liked pepper. The kids on the block used to call him that when he was little but he had forgotten why. Something he did one afternoon that stuck with people. It didn’t matter. They were all dead probably.
The door opened. Pepper and Delroy trained their pistols on each other. Delroy had appeared more capable than the bartender—Pepper didn’t have enough information to make a calculation about how this was going to go. “Is the woman here?” he said.
“There’s nobody,” Delroy answered. He looked at the two bodies. Lingered on his boss. “He dead?”
“See the holes?”
“Yeah.”
Pepper shrugged.
“Was going to ask for a raise.”
“Should have asked sooner.”
The two men understood something about each other. Delroy let his gun hand fall. Pepper did not follow suit. Pepper said, “What’s out there?” Meaning the red metal door in the back wall.
“You can reach the street.”
Pepper made a gimme gesture and the bodyguard slid the gun across the rug. Pepper bent for it and swiftly beat it outside.
The wind drove the blaze up the block. When the telephone rang twenty minutes later, Delroy was gone, as were the tenants who lived above the bar. Come morning, five buildings had been converted to shells. There were three fatalities: the seamstress on the fourth floor of 347 Lenox and the two criminals in Earl’s Satin. Contrary to the report from the fire department, Harlem’s criminal community maintained that the fire was started by Notch Walker as cover for the assassination of his rival. Indeed, by the end of the week Mr. Walker had expanded his territory to become the king of the uptown rackets. As was his habit, Pepper kept his mouth shut when he heard such nonsense, and sipped his beer.
The Daily News reporter didn’t think the woman’s name was worth including in the piece. She mattered. She was Eunice Hooks, originally from Chestertown, Maryland, and she had come to New York City to improve her circumstances.
EIGHT
It was like she was waiting for him when he showed up the next day. A small duffel bag and two framed photographs sat at the foot of the staircase. “Mommy—my ride is here,” she said.
Mrs. Wilkes shouted from upstairs and appeared a minute later to say goodbye. She was skinny and spry, not too much older than Pepper. She noticed the photographs and smiled at her daughter. “You think you’re taking those?” she said.
“My place could use a little something new,” Lucinda said.
“Your father’s going to have a fit,” Mrs. Wilkes said. “None of my business, though.” She had appraised her visitor and a dubious expression overtook her face. There was something fishy about him.
“He’s from the movie company,” Lucinda said. On set, her voice was deeper; she sounded childlike now. She wore blue jeans and a black cardigan underneath a red-and-white houndstooth coat. Pepper hadn’t seen her without Nefertiti’s prodigious Afro wig. Her hair was cut in a curly bob; it suited. She told her mother she’d call later that evening. Pepper moved to help her with her things and she brushed him off, covering the photographs so he couldn’t see what they were. He popped the trunk and Lucinda gently laid the pictures inside, facedown. She scurried back to hug her mother in the doorway and Mrs. Wilkes stood there, watching and waving, until they pulled away.
Pepper had borrowed the car from Buford that morning. The Dodge Charger was midnight blue, with a black vinyl top. Buford’s mother lived in Hempstead and the bartender drove out there a few times a week, chain-smoking with the windows up the entire way. Bent cigarette butts jutted from the ashtrays like dismal weeds. Pepper scowled when he got inside and took a whiff. Buford said, “No one’s forcing you to borrow it.”
According to the telephone operator, there were two Wilkeses listed in Maplewood. Pepper headed first to the home of Mr. Lamont Wilkes, as he had never met a white Lamont. The house was a handsome Tudor nestled in oak trees, with cozy window treatments and a lawn of stiff, frozen grass. He rang the doorbell and Lucinda opened the door like she was expecting him.
He drove toward Walton Road. “You grow up there?” Pepper asked.
“My whole life,” she said. “She keeps my room the same.”
It was a charming stretch of Maplewood, the kind of place where white people build snowmen after the first big winter storm and gave them ridiculous names. Pepper had been in Hilton, around Springfield Avenue before, but not this neighborhood. How mixed was it? He wondered how her family had got on when they first moved in. They didn’t speak for a time. “Nice house,” he said.