Claire DeWitt And The City Of The Dead Part 17

Andray smiled a forced, tight-lipped smile. "I told you, Miss Claire. I cleaned his pool a few times, he invited me in, we got to talking about birds and s.h.i.+t and-" A quick frown flashed across his face. "And that's it."

There was something he wasn't telling me-maybe a lot he wasn't telling me. But I had no idea how to get it out of him.

"So," Andray said. "You want a nine? An Uzi? Or what? Chief over there, he can get you an M-sixteen, and he got a flamethrower at home. That s.h.i.+t works, too."

I stopped and stared at him for a while. Then I told him that a simple handgun would do.

Andray leaned out the window. "Terrell," he called.

Terrell came out from inside the house. The windows were boarded up with plywood. Terrell held his pants up around his slim waist with his right hand. The boys who hung out on street corners in New Orleans were so achingly thin, I wondered if it was a fas.h.i.+on trend or they were trying not to exist, even less than they already did in the eyes of the world. Terrell wore a black sweats.h.i.+rt with a skeletal white spine on the back, as if he were already dead.

Terrell smiled. "What up?" he asked me. It was so rare that someone was happy to see me that I wondered what his angle was. Then I remembered I'd saved his life. Still, though.

"What happened to the hotel?" I asked.

Terrell laughed. "I got things to do! I can't be hiding out out there."

I wanted to argue but I didn't. Eat your breakfast. Don't listen to jazz, it's the devil's music. Don't hang out on the same corner where someone tried to shoot you,.

"You still got that thirty-eight?" Andray asked Terrell.

Terrell looked at Andray like he was crazy. Andray nodded. Terrell made an it's-your-life face and nodded.

"I can get it," he said.

"All right," Andray said, opening the door. "Come on. We gonna hook Miss Claire up."

Andray moved over and Terrell got in, shutting the door behind him. Terrell started to thank me again for the other night. I stopped him. Andray and Terrell broke out into a giggly conversation. When they spoke to each other their accents were so thick and their dialect so heavy that the only words I could make out were mothaf.u.c.ka and n.i.g.g.a.

"How about you?" I asked Terrell. "You know a guy named Vic Willing?"

Terrell busied himself getting a pack of cigarettes from his voluminous pants and lighting one up.

"s.h.i.+t," Andray said, laughing. "Terrell with me all weekend. I with him from Friday night till we get to Texas. Don't even f.u.c.k with that, lady. He ain't even know no lawyers. Boy never hardly met a cop."

Both boys laughed. But nothing was that funny.

"Where were you that weekend?" I asked Terrell. "During the storm?"

Terrell kept the smile on his face, but it was forced. Cigarette in hand, he reached up and pushed his hair back, holding his dreads up in the air for a minute before dropping them back down his back.

"Went to the Superdome first," he recited. "Then the Convention Center. Then we met up with some other people-Peanut, Lali, and them."

Terrell looked at Andray, as if to check that he was getting the story right. Andray looked straight ahead and ignored him. Andray was right. Terrell was no criminal mastermind. He was a bright, funny kid who, if he had lived anywhere else, probably would have listed underage-beer-buying as his worst crime. I couldn't imagine any circ.u.mstance other than being born in New Orleans that would have led Terrell to pick up a gun.

"And then we drove to Houston," Terrell went on. "Went to the Astrodome, but they ain't let us in."

"So what'd you do after that?" I asked. "What'd you do after you got turned away from the Astrodome?"

Terrell froze, doubtless trying to remember the story Andray had fed him to back up his alibi. Then he burst out laughing.

"s.h.i.+t, lady," he said. "I like to help you. But I try to forget all that. I don't want to think about it no more."

I gave up. Trying to get these boys to talk was like trying to la.s.so cats. Terrell directed me to an abandoned, half-collapsed house a few blocks away. Stuck in the lawn, half buried in the rubble and garbage, was a construction sign. I guessed the house was halfway renovated before the storm brought it back to the beginning: Another FINE job from

Ninth Ward Construction.

Call Frank!! I can Help!!

The sign was ringed in yellowish-brown watermark lines.

I parked in front and Terrell sprinted inside while Andray and I waited in the truck. A few minutes later Terrell came back and we drove to another deserted block and parked again. He took the gun out of his pants and laid it on the dashboard.

"May I?" I asked. Both boys nodded. I picked it up and looked at it and fiddled around with it for a few minutes. It was loaded. It looked good.

"What do you want for it?" I said.

Terrell looked at Andray and then me and then back at the gun. "No thin'," he said. "You saved my life. I don't need to make no money from you."

"I can give you what you paid for it, at least," I said. Usually I didn't buy contraband from children, but I figured if I was going to, I might as well not profit off it.

We haggled over the price and settled on one hundred. I took the gun and gave him five twenties. Terrell reached into the endless pockets of his huge pants and pulled out a small plastic bag of dark brown hand-rolled cigarettes before he pulled out a fat roll of money. He added the money I'd given him to his roll and started to put the money and bag away, but Andray stopped him.

"Hook a friend up," he said to Terrell.

Terrell looked at me.

"Go ahead," I said. Terrell took out one of the long, thin, crinkly cigarettes and lit it. We pa.s.sed it around. When it came to me I inhaled deeply and held the poisoned air in as long as I could.

Drugs take you places-some fun, some terrible. But the important thing about those places isn't whether or not they're fun. The important thing is that, sometimes, in some places, you can find clues.

Soon I was sleepy and pretty sure the truck was listing to one side, but I was more or less awake. The two boys started talking. I could hardly understand a word of it. I watched them as they talked: They were different boys together than they were alone. Together they were alive and hopeful and maybe even happy. They had their own language, forged from years of exchanging secrets and truths.

As I watched them I noticed something I hadn't before: Terrell and Andray had matching tattoos, a combination of two Ts and an A in a circular, almost Celtic sort of design on the inside of their right forearm, just past the crease of their elbow.

"Who's the other T?" I asked, interrupting their conversation.

They stopped talking and looked at me.

"Your tattoos," I said. "Who's the other T?"

Neither of them said anything, but I felt the mood in the truck change instantly. All laughter was gone, flown far away.

"You guys know each other a long time?" I asked, looking for another way in.

"All our lives," Terrell said. "Andray my brother."

The boys did some kind of special handshake and smiled. But something was missing. You could smell the sadness in the truck.

"Who was the other T?" I asked.

No one said anything. We pa.s.sed the cigarette around again. Now I was sure we were parked on a steep angle of some sort and the truck was leaning far to the left. I was surprised I didn't tumble out of my seat. I thought maybe it had been a mistake to disconnect the airbags.

After a long while, Andray said, "It was Trey. He the other T."

"Where is he?" I asked.

For another long while we smoked and no one said anything.

"I shot him," Andray finally said.

"You shot him?" I repeated. He handed me the brown cigarette but he didn't look at me. I took it and took another big inhale.

Andray nodded. "Yep. I shot him." He was so reserved-or so high-that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Terrell did too.

"What happened?" I asked.

"See, when we got back," Terrell began, "we-"

"No, no," Andray said. "Lemme start at the beginning. See, the three of us, we grew up together. We were friends all our lives."

"Real friends," Terrell said. "Not like people around here, always sayin' they your friend when they don't give a s.h.i.+t if you live or die. No. Us, we was like brothers."

"I don't even remember when we met," Andray said. "I don't even remember not knowing them two. We didn't even live together. Terrell was always in one foster home and Trey in another and me in mine. But somehow it was like-like we always found each other. We were always running into each other. And then we started working together. Eleven, twelve, we started working for the same people together. And that-that was good." He smiled. "I mean, now it wouldn't seem like nothin'. Just a little bit of money. But s.h.i.+t, we bought CDs, sneakers. Trey, his mom was doing good, she was slinging too"-I thought that meant selling drugs, but I wasn't sure-"and she bought us a car. A beat-up piece-a-s.h.i.+t ole Mercury. But man, we thought it was the s.h.i.+t. We went all over in that car, playing music, taking out girls. Just doing stupid s.h.i.+t. Just having fun. We was like brothers. Always together. We knew everything going on with each other. Everything. We collected money for each other, we made deals for each other. Trust, you know? We got these together, eighth grade." He looked at his tattoo.

"Trey a goofy mothaf.u.c.ka," Terrell said, laughing. "Like a f.u.c.king clown. Always, always, always with a joke. I remember once-"

"Once," Andray picked up, now laughing himself, "he got in a thing with this kid Deuce-"

"And Deuce comes up on him with a f.u.c.king nine in his back-"

"A f.u.c.king nine-"

"And Trey, he says, 'Deuce, man, you happy to see me or what?'"

We laughed. It was an old Mae West line but still a good one.

"Cold," Andray said, clearly meaning it as a compliment.

"Stone cold," Terrell agreed.

"But then," Andray went on, "it all changed. See, three, four years ago, we all started moving up. Making money. Meeting people. And soon we weren't working together no more. We was compet.i.tion. At first it didn't matter. There was plenty for everyone. But, you know-it was little things. We each had kids working for us then, and sometimes the kids would fight. Then we had to settle it. But you know, we always did. Settle it."

Terrell nodded glumly. "Until the storm," he said.

"Yeah, the storm," Andray said, nodding. "It all changed. See, Trey and Terrell, they went to Houston. And me, I went from Houston to Dallas. We each stayed away like three months, and when we came back, it was all different. See, business-wise, everything changed. We all hooked up with new people in Texas. So we weren't even with the same people anymore. Now we was really, like, rivals. And there was hardly no one else back yet. Not just customers, but sellers. Most were stuck, you know, California, Wisconsin, s.h.i.+t like that. Wherever the storm took them, they was stuck. So it was pretty much just me and Terrell and Trey and a few other guys."

"But mostly," Terrell said, "just us."

Andray nodded. "Just us. And a chance to make a lot of money, fast, before the rest of the mothaf.u.c.kas came back in town. I-well, I think I was a little f.u.c.ked up in the head anyway. 'Cause of the storm and s.h.i.+t. You know, some of the s.h.i.+t I saw-I was angry all the time. It was like-"

"Like a sickness," Terrell said. "Like a sickness, being angry all the time."

Andray nodded. "So, Trey, he just one more thing to get angry about. He's taking half my f.u.c.king customers away. Every day, I'm getting angrier and angrier. Meanwhile Trey's making all my f.u.c.king money. But it wasn't just that. It was like-like something else. s.h.i.+t, I can't explain it."

We pa.s.sed the long brown cigarette around. "Were you scared?" I asked.

"No," Andray said indignantly, almost laughing. Then he thought about it for a minute. "Yeah, maybe," he conceded. "Not of Trey. Not of anything, really. I just was. Like, I was always thinking someone was coming up behind me and s.h.i.+t."

"It's called post-traumatic stress disorder," I said. "It's like when something f.u.c.ked up happens to you and you feel like it's happening again and again. You're scared even when there's nothing to be scared of."

The boys nodded and looked at each other. They didn't need me to explain it to them.

Andray frowned. "Yeah. That was pretty much it. Scared all the time, but not scared of anything. Angry for no reason. Anyway," he went on, "finally, one day I say, Okay. Enough. Any other mothaf.u.c.ka stepping on my profits like this, I would have taken care of him long ago. Now it's time for Trey to go. So I tell him, Meet me over by the Calliope at midnight. This was in January-last January, about a year ago. Just like normal, Meet me over at the Calliope." He p.r.o.nounced the name of the housing project, named for the muse of music, KALI-ope. "So about eleven something, me and some of my boys, we get to Calliope. Trey, he already there. Alone. He didn't even look like he had a weapon. Nothing. He was just Trey. It was like he knew.

"So there we was. Me and my boys down at one end of the block. Trey at the other. The projects was closed. No one else was around. Just us.

"Trey, he ain't say a word when he saw me. Just stood there. Looked at me. And then he put his arms up, like he was gonna hug me from all the way away. Wide open. The easiest f.u.c.king target in the world.

"And then Terrell comes up. Running up on the street between us like a f.u.c.king crazy person." Andray shook his head. Terrell didn't say anything. "But I had my mind made up. My stupid f.u.c.king mind. I got Terrell outta the way and got a bead on Trey.

"I shot Trey.

"I shot him.

"I ain't see just where I'd hit him, but I knew I hit him somewhere. And Trey, he was still for a second. Less than a second, just a tiny little moment-he stood still and he just looked at me. He looked at me, like, Andray.

"And right then, that look on his face, that tiny little second-I saw what I done. I killed my best friend. See, he wasn't dead yet, but he was dying. I saw that. I killed him-the only person who ever was good to me. The only one who ever loved me, for real. My brother. Just him and Terrell. I killed him. I didn't even know why anymore. Just anger. Just being f.u.c.king crazy. Just, you know, like you said. 'Cause I was thinking he was gonna do me first. I don't even know why. But I thought that mothaf.u.c.ka was gonna kill me.

"So then Trey falls back, you know, like normal. Blood coming out of him all over the place-his chest, his mouth, his ears, his eyes. I just ran to him. I didn't give a s.h.i.+t who saw. I didn't care about nothing no more. Not nothing. Looking like a f.a.ggot-s.h.i.+t, that didn't mean nothing no more. I knew I'd just made the biggest f.u.c.king mistake of my life.

"I told him I loved him. I told him I was so sorry. I started to cry-f.u.c.k, I ain't cried like that since I was a little kid. Just really let go. I felt all the blood pumping right out of him. His heart was beating and it was like it didn't know the blood was all just going out to the ground. I held him and his blood was all over me, in my face, in my eyes. And I said, I love you. I f.u.c.ked up, and I know it, but I love you. I love you so much."

Andray stopped and laughed a little to cover up that he was crying.

"And then it was like-like time slowed down for a minute. Like time kind of stopped. And I felt this-like a-well, s.h.i.+t, I can't explain it. Something happened. Like a breeze, like it was hot and cold at the same time.