Fire Lake (20 page)

"You can have them if you tell me where Norvelle
is," I said to him.

He eyed the money hungrily, then eyed me. "You
say you a promoter?"

I nodded.

"Well, I guess it'll be all right."

So much for his scruples, I thought.

"You know that Cal you done talked to?" the
old man said. "Norvelle live with him. Over to Cross Lane."

"He told me Norvelle had moved."

"Shee-it." The old man let go of the skirts
of his coat and threw his left hand at me contemptuously. "If'n
you believe anything that boy tell you, you crazy. He's a mean boy,
that boy is. He treat Norvelle like dirt. Ain't but one reason he
keep him around."

"And what's that."

Lyle put a liver-colored finger to his nose and
sniffed dramatically. "Norvelle get him that candy. That boy do
like candy."

"Why should I believe you?" I said to him.

"What reason I got to be lying to you," the
old man said, looking a little outraged. His coattails were snapping
around his legs like a wild dog. "Shee-it, out here in all this
cold and snow." He put a pitiful look on his face and grumbled
some more, under his breath.

"I was just over on Cross Lane," I said,
"and Norvelle wasn't there."

The old man looked puzzled. "Well, I don't
know," he said slowly. "Norvelle be there most of the time.
But sometime he hang around the chili parlor, down here to Vine
Street."

"Which chili parlor?" I asked.

"LeRoi's Silver Star," Lyle said.

"Why does he hang out there?"

The old man gave me a dirty look. I was making him
work too hard for his money, and it galled him. Before he could get
his scruples back, I pulled another ten out of my pocket and added it
to the two twenties in my hand. It was just enough to put him back on
track.

"LeRoi be the man," Lyle said.

"Which man," I said, playing dumb. "The
man, fool. The candy man."

I handed him the fifty bucks. He snatched it out of
my hand and tucked it deep in his pants pocket.

"Don't you say where you heard that," Lyle
said, with a warning look.

"I won't."

"And don't you turn your back on that boy Cal.
He rob you blind."

The old man turned around and walked back into the
barbershop--his head bent against the wind.
 

28

When I got back inside the car, Karen asked, "Who
was that old guy you were talking to?"

"That was my good friend Lyle," I said to
her. "C'mon, we've got another place to visit."

Karen started the car up and pulled out onto Forest.
"The old man told you something?"

I nodded. "He told me where to find Norvelle's
connection. And maybe Norvelle, too."

"Where?"

"A chili parlor, down on Vine Street."

"Then Cal wasn't lying to us," Karen said,
with a touch of surprise.

"Oh, yes, he was," I said. "And we're
going to pay Cal another visit, too. A little later. He didn't kick
Norvelle out-he didn't dare."

"Why?" Karen said.

"Because Norvelle is Cal's connection. And Cal
likes his cocaine."

Karen glanced over at me. "You got all that from
the old man?"

"He was thirsty," I said. "I bought
him a few drinks."

"Nice job you've got," Karen said
sarcastically.

For some reason, the crack pissed me off. "You
feeling sorry for Lyle? Or for yourself? You know, I told you to go
back to St. Louis. You can still go, if you want. I didn't make any
of this happen. It was wished on me by your ex-husband."

Karen ducked her head. "I'm sorry, Harry. It's
just so fucking dirty--all of it. I thought I'd had my share of this
scene. I thought I'd worked out that karma. But I guess I was wrong."

I felt the anger drain out of me. "Look," I
said, glancing at my watch, "it's been a long day already. Once
we're done at the chili parlor, we'll go back to the Delores. Plan
some strategy. Take a little R and R."

"That sounds very good to me," Karen said
with a smile. "The R and R part. You think you're up to it?"

"There's more than
one way to skin a cat," I said with a wink.

***

We found LeRoi's Silver Star chili parlor on Vine
Street, a few houses up from the Mitchell intersection--right on the
borderline between South Avondale and St. Bernard. Like K.T.'s
Barbershop, it was nothing more than a concrete-block storefront,
with a flat tar roof, a picture window, and wavy canary-yellow
aluminum siding in front. A cracked neon sign hung above the door.

I made Karen drive past LeRoi's a couple of times,
before we parked down the block from it on Vine. Unlike K.T.'s, the
chili parlor was doing business in spite of the cold. The counter on
the left side of the joint was lined with a dozen stools. Half of
them were occupied by customers. I saw one of them--a middle-aged
black man in a sweater cap and a raincoat--pour half a bottle of
sugar into his coffee. You didn't have to be a genius to know that he
was stoned. They all looked stoned-heads bowed or bobbing like the
heads of those plastic dogs you see in the rear windows of old
Chevys.

"That's a drug store, Harry," Karen said,
staring through the car window. "And they don't just push
cocaine. The guys in there are junkies."

"I know."

"You can't walk in there and start asking
questions," she said, glancing back at me. "Not unless you
have a badge."

"Do you see Norvelle in there?" I asked
her.

She peered out the window and shook her head. "I
can't tell from here. I'll have to go inside."

"You're not going in," I told her.

"You don't know what he looks like," she
protested.

"Just stay in the car, Karen," I said in a
no-nonsense voice, and got out onto the sidewalk.

The salt trucks had already hit Vine, and the snow on
the street had turned to blackened slush. I waited for the traffic to
slow, then walked across the boulevard to LeRoi's chili parlor.

It was hot inside LeRoi's, and the whole place stank
of that peculiar mixture of cumin, rosemary, and grease that passes
for chili in this chili-crazy city. A wall hanging was nailed beside
the door--an Arabian scene full of camels and turbaned men, like an
exotic postcard for the junkies to nod over. There were a few empty
booths to the right, and the luncheon counter on the left, with its
row of stools leading back to the kitchen. Behind the counter, a
grill boy was standing in front of a tureen, ladling soup into a
bowl. He had his back to me as I walked into the room.

The men on the stools glanced up at me as one. They
all looked the same--black men in raincoats, with lean, hostile faces
and bleary eyes. A couple of them started snorting, as if they had
bad head colds. All of them eyed me with hate. I surveyed their
faces, but I wouldn't have recognized Norvelle if he'd been sitting
in front of me. None of those hardened junkies was going to talk to
me. I began to think it had been a mistake to walk in there.

I knew it was a mistake when I turned toward the
grill behind the counter. The grill boy was staring at me with
surprise, the soup ladle still in his hand. He didn't have his
sunglasses on, this time, or his camel's-hair coat or his plantation
hat. He was wearing a chili-stained cook's apron, tied over a white
shirt and black pants. But I recognized his curls and his milk
mustache and his high-yellow face instantly. When he smiled, I saw
the diamond in his teeth twinkle like a signet.

"Homes!" Bo said, as if we were old
friends.

Seeing Bo, standing there smiling, infuriated me. I
got so angry so quickly that my hands started to shake. In the back
of my mind, I knew I couldn't pick a worse spot to make a move. But
the adrenaline had already started up. And I owed Bo. For what he had
done to my apartment. For what he had tried to do to me. For what he
might try to do again, if I gave him the chance.

I didn't think about my injuries. I didn't think
about Karen, waiting in the car. I didn't think about anything but
Bo's razor and the wild, drugged-out look in his eyes when he'd come
at me in my living room. Before he could open his mouth again, I
reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the Gold Cup, unlocking it
with my thumb.

A couple of the junkies cried out, "No, man!"
And one of them jumped up and ran toward the kitchen at the back of
the room.

Bo stared at the pistol with horror, transfixed by it
for a split second. Before he could react, I reached across the
counter and grabbed him by the front of the apron, pulling him right
up to the barrel, so that the front sight pressed against his lips.
He dropped the ladle on the floor and started trembling. His eyes
crossed, trying to stare down the gun barrel.

"No!" he shrieked in his girlish voice.
"Oh, Jesus, don't!"

I yanked him over the counter, knocking over coffee
cups and sugar bowls. Hot coffee flew everywhere. The junkies nearest
to where I was standing jumped off their stools. One of them fell off
his, and went crawling backward on his hands toward the far wall.

I pulled Bo to his feet and pinned him against the
wall by the grill, so I could see the whole room in front of me. No
one went for a gun or a knife. No one was going to try. I could see
it in their faces. All they cared about was not getting hurt by the
wild honkie with the automatic.

I ground the gun barrel into Bo's face.

"You going to do some cutting, Bo?" I said
to him.

His eyes rolled back and he screamed. He tried to
pull away, his feet flying around on the linoleum floor as if he were
on roller skates. But I had a good grip.

"Where's your boss?" I said to him, and
smacked him on the scalp with the gun.

He shrieked again. And I hit him again.

His scalp started pouring blood. It spurted over his
apron and over me. I wanted to hit him a few more times. I would
have--I was that enraged--if someone with a deep, calm voice hadn't
called out: "That's enough, brother."

I looked away from Bo toward the counter. A tall,
good-looking black man in another apron was standing in the aisle
between the stools and the wall. He had a shotgun in his hands. For a
second, I thought I was dead. Then I realized the man wasn't training
the shotgun on me--he was cradling it in his arms, as if it were just
for show. Still, I almost shot at him. I was that close to gut
reaction.

"No, no, no," he said softly, as if he were
reading my mind. "Ain't gonna be no shooting."

I took a deep breath and let Bo go. He slipped to the
floor at my feet, groaned, and started to crawl around on all fours.
I stared at the man with the shotgun, trying to figure out why he
hadn't shot me. Unlike the junkies in the chili parlor, he was
stocky, almost healthy-looking. His face was light brown, handsome,
with something unexpectedly gentle about his large black eyes.

While the guy with the gun and I were staring at each
other, Bo managed to crawl around in a full circle at my feet. He
grabbed at my trousers legs, pulled himself up, and stared at me
desperately, as if he thought he'd found help. When he wiped the
blood from his face and focused his eyes, he shrieked and let go of
my pants. One of the junkies laughed shrilly, like a mynah bird. I
pushed Bo away and he fell on his back. He just lay there pawing the
air, like an upturned bug.

I stared at Bo for a second then looked back at the
black man with the shotgun, to see how he'd react. He didn't do
anything. I still couldn't figure out why he hadn't shot me--a
wild-eyed white man waving a pistol and beating up his friend. Then
it dawned on me that he must have known who I was and that he didn't
want me dead--at least, not until he'd gotten his goods back.

"You're LeRoi, aren't you?" I said to him,
lowering my pistol but keeping my finger on the trigger.

"I'm LeRoi, man," he said, in his deep,
soft voice-a choir bass.

"You're his boss?" I asked, pointing with
the gun at Bo, who had flipped himself over and was now making his
way on hands and knees down the aisle.

"He work for me some, yeah."

I raised the pistol and pointed it at LeRoi's head.
LeRoi blanched.

"Wha'chu doing?" he said with a questioning
look.

"Put the shotgun down," I said to him in a
tough voice. He hesitated a moment, then laid the shotgun on the
lunch counter.

"Now, you think I've got something of yours,
LeRoi," I said. "But I don't"

"I don't know what you talking about," he
said icily. The gentle look in his eyes had disappeared. Replaced by
something tough and controlled--something much tougher than the stuff
that Bo was made of.

"I think you do," I said. "If you want
to talk about it, you give me a call tonight. You know my number and
my address. If you forgot, ask him."