The Clouds Roll Away Page 12

  “When these guys get nervous, Sully, people die. Tell me what you did.”

  “Prices went up,” he said.

  I stepped on the gas, barreling down Bainbridge Street.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Look. It’s no big deal. I just took some of the—”

  Four men stepped from the shadows. My headlights hit them, twenty yards ahead in the middle of the road. They formed a line, arms crossed, and Sully cursed. When I hit the brakes, the back wheels locked, fishtailing the K-Car to a stop.

  The men walked toward us.

  Sully cursed again. His voice high and scared.

  They wore black jackets marked with the eye patch and crossbones of the Oakland Raiders. The man in the middle placed both hands on the K-Car’s hood, staring through the windshield, as the other three moved to both sides, disappearing from view.

  A fifth man stepped off the curb.

  Sully cursed again.

  I kept my voice at a whisper. “Are these the guys?”

  He answered with another curse. I glanced in the rearview mirror. One of them was running his hands over my square trunk. The other guys were somewhere in the shadows. Reaching under my cape, I found my purse and wrapped my palm around the Glock, placing my index finger alongside the trigger.

  The fifth man walked over to Sully’s side.

  Sully was hyperventilating.

  “Don’t talk,” I whispered. “Let me handle it.”

  He knocked on Sully’s window.

  “Roll it down,” I said.

  Sully was wild-eyed, paralyzed with fear. Pure fear.

  I leaned across the bench seat, cranking the handle with my left hand, my right still tucked under the cape and inside the purse.

  The man leaned down. He was big. His brown scalp was shaved bald, a Raiders headband covering his ears. He placed one hand on the window frame. The other hand went to the K-Car’s roof, presumably to signal the Raiders. He stared at Sully, a flat expression in his dark shiny eyes. The dead expression perfected in penitentiaries.

  I started shivering again. Not from the cold.

  “Yo,” he said to Sully. “We got a problem?”

  Sully shook his head.

  “Yeah, we got a p-problem.” I shivered and stared into the big man’s eyes, not even trying to hold back my shakes. “How m-much m-money did he give you?”

  With one glance, he took inventory of the car. The backseat held my beat-up duffel bag. No briefcase. I wasn’t supposed to be working tonight.

  “Who am I talking to?” he said.

  “His buyer.”

  Sully let out a squeak.

  I lifted the baggie. “I paid a g-grand,” I said. “Does th-that look right to you?”

  He opened his palm, holding it just inches from Sully’s sweating face. I gave him the baggie and he rubbed the grains between his thumb and finger. The expression in his eyes never changed, never exposed one thought or feeling or suspicion, and his next move cracked like lightning.

  He grabbed Sully’s jacket and yanked him out the window. By the time I realized what was happening, Sully’s dirty tennis shoes were caught on the frame, toes twisted backward.

  “You stealin’, Sully?”

  Sully gurgled.

  “I asked you a question.” He yanked Sully all the way out of the car, holding him in the air like a rag doll. “Check the little purse.”

  One Raider stepped forward, unzipping Sully’s fanny pack. He pulled out a fat roll of bills bound by a rubber band.

  The big man let go. Sully dropped like a stone.

  Licking his fingers, the man counted the money. My pulse jumped in my neck. I ran through the scenarios, narrowed it down to two. Both ended badly. The third idea started worse, but could end better.

  The man scratched the side of his face, flicking fingers across his skin.

  He nodded.

  The Raiders rushed forward, kicking. Dull, ugly thuds.

  Sully screamed. The big man leaned down into the open window, staring at me.

  I held his gaze. “Thanks, I—”

  “Get out of the car,” he said.

  chapter twenty

  It was a shotgun-style house, one long rectangle stinking of mildew and scorched microwave popcorn. I waited inside as they dragged Sully over the threshold, throwing him on the dirty floor. Dirtier than any floor I’d ever seen.

  The bald man had a lumbering walk, scuffing the heels of his Timberland boots. He unzipped his black down jacket, motioning for me to follow down the long hallway where clumps of dog hair stuck to chewed-up baseboards. Somewhere far away music played, a sound muffled by the blood whooshing through my ears. My heart banged against my chest.

  The hallway ended at the kitchen. I combed my eyes over the back door, checking the dead bolts. All three were locked. Dogs were scratching on the other side. Their barks were deep and slobbery and hungry. Pit bulls. Rottweilers.

  Killer dogs.

  Keeping the door to my left, I turned slowly to the right, taking in a torn-up countertop and electric stove whose coils burned crimson under dented aluminum pans. A man stood at the stove and poked a sharp knife at bubbles that rose in a thick white substance inside the pans. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were large and sloe and mean.

  “You nailed it, XL,” the big man said. “Sully was up to something.”

  I took a swallow of the rancid air and pulled the cape tighter, wedging the small clutch under my left elbow. For several long moments I stared at the cooking white paste, trying to detach. I decided to think about the drugs, not the people. I thought about the chemical structure of cocaine hydrochloride. I thought about how it changed from salt to freebase if heated with an alkali. Staring at the tip of his knife, I listened to the metal-on-metal scrapes until I trusted my eyes to conceal their knowledge.

  XL was size S.

  Five-foot-five in oxblood penny loafers, he wore a white polo shirt and wide-wale cuffed blue corduroys. With the horn-rims, he looked ready for the Ivy League. His mean eyes traveled from my face down to the cape, to the dress, my legs, finally resting on my high heels.

  “He rip you off, baby?” His voice was as sweet as rancid honey, nothing like the cold voice I’d heard on the phones.

  I nodded, letting my teeth chatter. I pulled the cape closer.

  The big man took off his coat. The kitchen was hot.

  “Moon,” said XL.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s Sully?”

  “In the living room, filling his pants.”

  “You’re telling me he came back?” XL glanced into the pan, stabbing the paste.

  Moon took him through the details, describing the sight of the K-Car flying down the street, screeching to a stop. As he spoke, I trained my eyes to the side of his face and tried to remember how tiny Zennie Lewis controlled this large ruthless man. Her voice, I recalled her voice. The way she spoke on the phone. She always sounded . . . offended. Inconvenienced.

  I let out a short impatient sigh. I shook my head, flicking my hair. Something caught my eye. In the corner. By the back door. Guns. Submachine guns, leaning against the dirty wall like toys.

  “Only Sully ain’t the narc,” Moon was saying. “He’s just a thief. Look what he held out on us.”

  Moon held up the fifties.

  “Frisk her,” XL said.

  “But it’s Sully who—”

  “Do it, Moon.”

  Moon scuffed over in the Timberland boots, standing behind my back. He laid heavy hands on my shoulders, patting down my back. I shifted the clutch purse forward, and when his hands came around the front, I pulled away.

  “No free feels,” I said, trying to sound annoyed. “I already got ripped off once tonight.”

  Moon held his hands in midair. He glanced at XL.

  XL concerned himself with his cooking again. The cell phone on the countertop rang. He ignored it. “Where you at, baby?”

  “Baby?”

  “Who you working for?”<
br />
  “What?”

  “Answer my question.”

  I frowned. Then laughed. “Oh, you think I’m a cop.”

  Moon reached over, tugging on my hair.

  “Hey!”

  “That’s no wig,” Moon said. “And dawg, she’s driving a grandpa mobile.”

  From under the long eyelids and horn-rims, XL stared like a malevolent English professor. He’d almost mastered the dead expression, except I was certain XL never had to perfect it behind bars. He was the brains. Other people did his time. People like Moon.

  “You got a job?” he asked.

  “I’m in school.”

  “Where?”

  “VCU.”

  “Old for a student. What’s your first class on Monday?”

  “Painting.”

  “Teacher?”

  “Helen Harmon.”

  “Call the school,” he told Moon, not taking his eyes off me. “See if that’s who teaches painting Monday mornings.”

  I watched Zennie’s boyfriend dig into the pocket of his baggy jeans and pull out a small phone. He held it close to his body, his thick finger aiming for the buttons. He dialed 411, then glanced at XL.

  “What am I asking for?”

  A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

  “Virginia Commonwealth University,” XL said. “You want the art department.”

  When he asked the name of the teacher again, I took the opportunity to act peeved, rolling my eyes. It gave me another glimpse of the guns. The wooden stocks were scratched. Heavily used.

  “I got a voice machine,” Moon said. “I gotta spell the name.”

  I sighed, irritated, and spelled the name Harmon. Pushing the lettered buttons, Moon placed the phone back to his ear. A sudden burst of relief went through me. Moon’s cell phone was on our T-III wiretap, this call was being recorded. No criminal activity yet, but they would keep listening—wouldn’t they?

  “Look, you got my money,” I said, loudly enough to be picked up on Moon’s phone. “Quit playing games or I’ll find somebody who can fill the order.”

  “I got the voice mail,” Moon said.

  XL stared at me. But he spoke to Moon. “Leave your number. Ask her to call about her student. What’s your name, baby?”

  “It ain’t baby.”

  His smile was arctic. “What is it?”

  “Nadine.”

  “Last name?”

  “How many Nadines do you think there are in her class? Just leave the message so we can get on with it.”

  Moon asked my sister to call about my mother.

  Sweat beaded at my neck, rolling down my back.

  “So, Nadine,” XL said, “where you going tonight all dolled up?”

  “Christmas party. Now I’m late.”

  “Selling?”

  “If I ever get the goods.”

  He asked about the party. I invented rich guys who worked downtown and liked to party hard on weekends, guys whose habit paid my tuition at VCU.

  “These rich guys,” XL said, “they need more product?”

  I held out my hand. “Just give me the goods.”

  Moon turned, coughing.

  XL smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes.

  “Go chill in the living room, Nadine,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Moon stayed in the kitchen. I walked down the hall, my heart playing handball against my sternum, my heels clicking hollowly on the wooden floor. It sounded like I was walking across a trapdoor. I looked down. My fingers had crushed the cape’s red velvet. Looking up again, I searched for Sully, for an escape. By the front door, a Raider stood holding a submachine gun. Scratched-up stock, just like the ones by the back door.

  “How you doin’?” His voice echoed off the bare walls and floor.

  “I gotta get something out of my car.”

  He shook his head and pointed the gun’s muzzle toward the living room.

  The shag carpet looked like an amethyst ocean of nylon with black leather flotsam. The modular couch, separated into three pieces, formed a horseshoe under a ceiling projector. The only light in the room came from the hazy blue images beamed to the eight-foot screen on the opposite wall. I saw Sully, sprawled on the sectional by the door. His right arm was draped over his face. I reached down, picking it up.

  One eye was shiny and swollen shut. Blood leaked from his nose, coagulating on his neck. His left eye was open. It stared at me.

  “We’ll take care of him,” the Raider said.

  I dropped Sully’s arm over his face. He whimpered.

  “I better take him home,” I said. “Otherwise his mommy will worry.”

  The Raider laughed. My heart launched another round of handball.

  The rest of the couch was occupied by a woman built like kindling, one stick arm fenced around a little girl beside her. An older boy, about ten, sat next to the girl. I watched the woman’s head drifting. When her chin touched her chest, her head snapped up, eyes rolling like blind marbles. Then she drifted off again.

  I sat down next to the boy.

  He stared at the screen and took darting glances without moving his head. Checking out Sully. The Raider, the gun. Me. At ten, he was already an expert at concealing.

  The Raider moved back to the front door. I looked at the screen.

  Charlie Brown was dragging a spindly Christmas tree into the school auditorium. I took a slow breath, trying to still my heartbeat. On the second breath, I ran through an escape scenario, working my hand back inside the clutch purse while Charlie Brown threw his arms in the air, wondering if anybody knew what Christmas was all about.

  I glanced over at the children. The boy’s eyes shifted back to the screen. The girl sucked her thumb, her braided hair secured by plastic barrettes. The woman’s fingers twitched at the end of her long bony arm, and Linus walked onstage. The girl turned to the boy, mewing.

  Linus asked for a spotlight, then began quoting the book of Luke. Shepherds abiding in the field, watching flocks by night. An angel appearing, telling them not to fear.

  The girl mewed again. The boy patted his leg, and Linus described a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. The girl laid her head on the boy’s lap, the woman’s hand flopped on the couch, and Linus picked up his blanket, walking offstage.

  XL stepped into the doorway. He ran his eyes over the woman, disgust on his face. He ignored the children. He glanced down at Sully.

  “Next time,” he said, looking at me, “leave the trash at home.”

  The Raiders dumped Sully in the K-Car, making sure his head struck the door frame. As I shoved the key in the ignition, my hands shook. I peeled off the curb, speeding down Perry Street, blind with fear and relief.

  I hit a pothole and Sully whimpered, pulling his arm off his face. He looked like a battered Cyclops. “You could’ve got us killed!”

  I found Semmes Avenue. The bridge was up ahead. I decided I would run any red lights just to get out of here.

  “Did you hear me?” he demanded.

  “I heard you, Sully. You’ve got it backward.”

  “What!”

  “Those guys can smell fear, Sully. They knew you were playing games. They pegged you for a narc.”

  “Did not.” He sneered, but only half his face responded.

  The bridge was coming closer. I glanced in the rearview mirror, wondering what would happen if they suddenly realized the truth. I pushed the gas pedal into the floor. The K-Car whined a solid fifteen over the speed limit.

  “That money’s mine,” Sully said, as though we were discussing it. “My life’s on the line here.”

  “Everybody’s life is on the line,” I said. “Every cop, every agent out here. So what do you do? Get greedy. Risk everything for a couple hundred bucks. You’re alive right now because those guys got the money you were supposed to deliver. But don’t bother thanking me.”

  “Thanking you?”

  “If they thought you were a narc, they’d k
ill you.”

  “Would not.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “First they’d torture you, then they’d kill you.”

  He was quiet.

  I turned right at Riverfront Towers. The city was as silent as a mausoleum.

  He said, “And what if I told them about you? What if I told them you were an FBI agent instead of taking your punches? Huh, what about that?”

  “You didn’t take any punches for me, Sully.”

  He sat up, pointing to his black eye. “Oh yeah? What’s this?”

  “A reprieve.”

  “What?”

  “Sully, if you told the truth, we’d both be dead. You took punches tonight. But it would have been a bullet tomorrow.”

  I suddenly realized I was driving past the governor’s mansion, my mind distracted with adrenaline. Snapping on the blinker, I whipped around, swinging up Main Street by the Mutual Assurance building. The light turned red. No need to run it. Nobody was following. I looked over at the digital clock. 11:42 p.m. Temperature, 38 degrees. And downtown Richmond frozen as a still life.

  “You know what you are?” Sully said.

  The light turned green. He released a string of curses, punctuated with the name for a female dog.

  I waited for him to finish, then said, “Sully, you just might be right.”

  chapter twenty-one

  When I first read the biblical account of Eve and the serpent, it seemed way too short. Just a couple dozen words in Genesis. It didn’t seem sufficient for explaining the fall of mankind. Nothing in there about Eve’s struggle to choose between right and wrong. Nothing about the time she spent contemplating the decision that sealed our fate.

  It went like this: The serpent speaks, Eve replies. The serpent lies and bang—we’re toast.

  But when I was old enough to live through my own falls from grace, those seven short verses began to gleam with wisdom.

  Whenever I thought I was right, I forgot to listen for the sibilant whisper. Hearing only my own counsel, my righteous insistence, I failed to hear the asp slithering through the grass. It was only later, in the messy aftermath, that I began to peel away the justifications and rationalizations, the false logic and shifting blame, until I was left with one small dark object, resting in the palm of my hand like an apple seed.