A Cure for Night (28 page)

Devin shrugged. "So now's the time for you two to just come on
back to this door here; we going to step outside."

I looked over at Myra, who was keeping her gaze trained on Devin. He was directing us to a back door in the room that I hadn't even noticed, kitty-corner from where we'd come in. This was probably our best chance to fight back. I scanned the room quickly, but other than the rows of pot plants and the lights and the foil along the walls it was empty.

A fleeting image of Beth's pale, desolate face ran across my mind. As it did it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I'd been wrong about one crucial thing with her: I'd always thought Beth had picked me out as someone she could corrupt, but maybe instead she'd hoped that I would find a way to save her. I hadn't saved Beth, had barely saved myself, but I wasn't going to let the same thing happen to Myra. If there was a way out of here I wanted Myra to have it. I wanted her to survive. It was on me to find a way.

Myra and I walked slowly through the narrow aisle between the rows of the hydroponic pot, making our way toward the door. Devin stood about five feet away from it, his gun trained on us. I couldn't lunge at him without offering him plenty of time to shoot me. We were on his turf, playing by his rules, and there was nothing I could think of to do. Devin was clearly so confident that he could handle us that he didn't even have any backup with him; I guessed that doing us this way was part of his restoring his street cred.

"It's open," Devin said as I reached the door. "You just go on
out."

I pushed the door open, stepping back out into the cold, wondering if this was finally my chance. I could slam the door shut behind us, give us at least a couple of seconds to run. But run where? As I peered into the darkness outside I realized the backyard—a grassless patch of dirt—was completely fenced off, nothing that would provide shelter, no signs of life nearby. There was nowhere to go.

"That's right," Devin said from behind me. "Just keep on walking."

Myra was a step or so behind me, but I kept my back to her as I desperately scanned the yard for a way out. I felt a tingling along my spine from the expectation that any second now Devin would shoot me. I heard a noise from behind me, a metallic screeching sound, and I turned back toward Devin.

He'd come through the doorway and was heading toward us. "This ain't even personal," Devin said evenly.
"It's like what you said about how you called me out in that court—just doing my
job here. You all should be able to respect that."

I'd continued to walk backward as Devin approached us, getting out to the middle of the yard.
"All right, you can stop moving now," Devin said. "You've come to your final
spot here in this world."

"The police are already looking for you on Taylor's murder. You don't think they'll connect the dots if we turn up dead?" Myra said, the last trace of calm drained out of her voice.
"This isn't some drive-by that nobody will look at."

"Looks to me that you all are going to turn up missing, which ain't the same as dead," Devin said.
"Look where you be at. Who going to find you buried back here?"

"Even if they don't, we disappear the same day Lorenzo Tate gets acquitted, you don't think the police are going to focus on you?" Myra said.
"They already are because of Malik."

"You think the five-oh never knock on my door before? They don't got no bodies, they ain't
got no crime."

"What about Shawne Flynt?" I said, trying the only thing I could think of.
"You really think he won't flip on you the first time he's staring down real
time on a possession with intent?"

"You just might be right on that," Devin said. The only illumination came from the open doorway, the light behind him making it impossible for me to see his expression, just the puff of his breath when he spoke into the cold air.
"So maybe now I got to take him out too. Not gonna help you all, though, is it?"

Devin had been holding the gun at his side, but now he raised it up so that it was pointed at me. I decided to run at him, to go down fighting, at least give Myra a slim chance to get away. As I gathered myself to charge a shadow dampened the light behind him.

Devin must have noticed it too, because he turned to look back. The bark of a gun was so loud I almost jumped out of my skin. Instinctively I dived to the ground, rolling away from Devin as shot after shot rang out.

A second later the only sound was the ringing in my ears. I was curled up into a fetal ball in the dirt. I looked over and saw Myra crouched a couple feet away. When I looked back to where Devin Wallace had been standing I didn't see anyone there.

Someone else was in the yard, framed in the illuminated doorway. He began walking toward us, then stopped about ten feet away, bending down. I was still on the ground, trying to see what was happening. After a moment I realized the man who'd just been approaching was standing over the crumpled body of Devin Wallace.

"Wasn't no way I was going to miss taking out that motherfucker twice," Lorenzo Tate said, walking toward us, the silhouette of a gun visible in his hand.

"What're you doing here?" I said.

"Looks like you needed me, son," Lorenzo said. He seemed different, but of course he did: it was the first time I'd seen him as a free man, and he was standing over a dead body with a gun in his hand while I was still sprawled down in the dirt. I sat up, but something kept me from standing. I looked over and noticed that Myra was still crouched as well, looking ready to dive or run.

Lorenzo noticed it too: he let out a low chuckle. "Well, c'mon, now," he said.
"You two all right."

"What're you doing here, Lorenzo?" Myra said, her voice low.

"I didn't know the motherfucker would go after you," Lorenzo said.
"And that there's the truth. I trailed him out here, but I ain't got clue one
what was up. I was just biding my time till I get what the score be; next thing
is I see you two brought in. You all did right by me, so I knew I wasn't having
that."

"You shot him before," I said, realizing as I said it that I probably shouldn't.
"Back in the Gardens."

"Ain't like you just thought of that now, homey," Lorenzo said with a smile.
"Course it was me. Five-oh had a witness to that shit. What'd you think?"

"You shot him over the money?" I asked.

"Devin thought he could cut me out. His crew had found this place here. He wasn't never going to pay me, and he was going to move in on my product. He thought there wasn't nothing I could do, being as I don't got me a crew like he do. He'd made his move to put me out of the game, and there wasn't but two things I could do. Either I stand down or I step up. Wasn't no choice at all." Lorenzo stopped talking and cocked his head, looking down at us.
"How come you all still ducked down like that?"

"You've still got a gun in your hand, Lorenzo," Myra said.

Lorenzo looked down at the gun as if he'd forgotten it was there.
"That ain't nothing for you two to worry about."

I stood up slowly, swiping at my pants, which were ripped at one knee. I didn't think Lorenzo planned on hurting us, but on the other hand we were now witnesses to a murder he'd just committed. Myra still hadn't moved.
"What about Malik Taylor?" she asked.

Lorenzo shook his head, something like a smile on his face. "I
tried to give you my boy Marcus as an alibi, but you weren't going for it. Then
you started in about Malik, and it just, like, came to me, you know. No way was
that dumb proud-ass motherfucker Devin going to even wait till after the trial
to take Malik out, not if you put it out there that the dude was tapping Yo-Yo."

"You lied to us about Malik and Yo-Yo getting back together," Myra said.

"I just gave you what you were looking for is all," Lorenzo said.
"I didn't have nothin' against the man. But I wasn't seeing no other way. Way it works out here, I got to go through you to stay alive, then that's what I gotta do. That ain't on me, though. I got no beef with Malik."

"But you caused him to be killed," Myra said.

I turned to her, raising a cautionary hand. "Myra—" I said.

"She can say what she gotta say," Lorenzo said evenly. "You all
can't put that on me without putting it on your own self. All you got to tell me
is that we're all right with what went down here."

"Devin was going to kill us," I said quickly, not wanting to give Myra a chance to speak.
"You acted to save our lives. You didn't commit any crime."

"That's nice to know, but we ain't gonna find out," Lorenzo said.
"The po-po don't come into what happened back here, you feel me? You all did
right by me. I figure now we're something approaching even."

"We understand," Myra said before I could speak. I turned to her in surprise but she kept her focus on Lorenzo.
"You saved our lives. We can walk away from here and never look back."

Lorenzo took a moment, studying her closely, the gun still in his hand. Finally he nodded. I realized that it was necessary that Myra had been the one to say it.

WE LEFT
Lorenzo there and went back out to the street. I was still on guard, looking for any sign of either Devin Wallace's men or of anyone who'd heard the recent gunshots. But the street was empty and quiet. Myra's car was gone.

Suddenly all the fear of the last hour hit me and I felt myself shaking. I clenched my hands into fists and tried to ride it out.

I looked over at Myra, who looked back at me in the gauzy dark. "You really willing not to report what just happened?" I asked.

"What's it get anybody if we do?" Myra said. "Lorenzo really did
kill Devin Wallace to save our lives. He would've done it even if we weren't
there, but we were, and Devin was going to kill us. Lorenzo can't be charged
again on the Lipton murder. He's not legally responsible for Taylor's death,
even if he did cause it."

"So we just let it go?"

"What else do you want to do, Joel?"

"What if it comes out down the road?"

"You mean if Lorenzo is someday arrested for Devin's murder?" Myra said.
"I don't see that happening. Nobody who could point the police to that building
is going to do so."

I looked around again, amazed at how ordinary everything appeared. The city didn't know, or care, that we'd just witnessed a murder and almost died ourselves. The city just kept right on going, too vast and impersonal to stop for any one person's death.

I realized that a rough justice had played out here. The battle had always been between Lorenzo Tate and Devin Wallace. We'd merely been pawns in a larger chess game we hadn't even known was being played. Unlike Malik Taylor, we'd survived. If anyone here deserved justice, it was Malik. But Myra was right: that justice wasn't going to be forthcoming from the law. The person directly responsible for his death, Devin Wallace, was himself dead, and after that the guilt was diffuse, covering us nearly as much as it did Lorenzo.

We at least had the excuse that we'd just been doing our jobs. But Lorenzo felt the same way: he'd been jammed up on a murder charge, and he'd just been looking for whatever way out he could find. That the way he'd chosen had led to an innocent person's death was nothing more than collateral damage, as far as he was concerned.

Of course, none of this would've happened if it'd been the truth we'd been looking for. The truth had been staring us in the face from the beginning, so obvious that we'd essentially been forced to ignore it in order to mount a defense. We'd done our best to pick away at it—attacking Yolanda's ID, putting forward Lorenzo's manufactured suspect—but none of that had anything to do with the truth.

"You really flushed it down the toilet?" Myra asked.

I looked back at her, thrown off for a moment by the question, then nodded.

"Did you suspect it was meant to kill you?"

"Other than it being heroin, no. I flushed it because I didn't want it. Actually—" I cut myself off.

"What?"

I couldn't look at her as I said it. "I flushed it when I got home
that night. After I went over to your place."

"Oh," Myra said. "Okay."

I forced myself to look at her. "Is that too much to put on you?"

Myra looked back at me; then she reached out and touched my face. In that touch came my first full understanding that we had actually survived what had just happened. I took her in my arms, both of our bodies trembling. The feeling of being alive flooded through me, more powerful than any drug, but clean and pure and good.

"We should get out of here," Myra said softly, her breath against my neck.
"We're a long way from home."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A tip of the hat to: Alice Peacock, for everything; Betsy Lerner, for vision and persistence; Gerry Howard, for wisdom; Anna Roberts, for details; Brett Dignam and Stephen Bright, for legal education; Holley Bishop, Stephen Koch, and Maureen Howard, for help along the way; and Bertolt Sobolik and Loren Noveck, for being there.

Copyright © 2008 by Justin Peacock

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States by Doubleday,
an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY
is a registered trademark and the DD colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. All characters are products of the author's imagination and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, is unintentional. While there are a number of real places mentioned in this novel, any situation in which which they are referenced is entirely fictional. Places and geography have been freely altered to suit the demands of the story.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peacock, Justin.
A cure for night / by Justin Peacock.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Lawyers—Fiction. 2. College students—Crimes against—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.E225C87  2008
813'.6—dc22
2007050694

eISBN: 978-0-385-52844-3

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