The Clouds Roll Away (17 page)

“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?”

“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 kill 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

W
hen 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.

My hasty choice.

Sunday morning in St. John's Church, I sat between my mother and DeMott. The organ piped a Christmas melody. My mother hummed along about shepherds guarding and haste, haste, and I stared at the altar. My mind circled with the images of XL's deadly eyes and Sully. Drugs, guns. Children.

“Mac's having an open house on Christmas Day,” DeMott said. “Would you two like to come?”

Mac was not here, nor Jillian. My mother exclaimed her acceptance. “Isn't that lovely? Of course we'll come.”

She wore the red wool suit again, the harsh fit trapping her delicate femininity. When she lifted her wrist, checking a new digital watch, the thing made me want to weep. I missed her bangles, the music they used to make.

“Three minutes,” she said.

DeMott turned to me. “Thanks again for coming to Mac's party.”

I nodded, thinking of those children. Later that night, where did they go? Who fed them? Tucked them into bed?

The priest strode to the front of the sanctuary wearing long white vestments. He asked us to stand and open the Book of Common Prayer. My mother's sensible flats hit the wood floor. She gave the jacket a tug, its all-business style never intended for a woman with her curves. The outfit made her look stout. Opening the book with the rest of the congregation, she recited the lyrical language, centuries old. But the words tasted stale in my mouth, and I remembered when I first learned the other meaning of the word
common
. In second grade, I overheard two adults discussing my family. I was backstage, hiding behind a curtain, waiting to go onstage in a play about the Pilgrims.

“Which girl?” asked one woman.

“The one David Harmon adopted.”

“Oh, her. There's also a sister several grades up. Bright girls. But I've met the mother.”

“And?”

“She's common.”

“Forget I said anything.”

Then they laughed.

Among the most violent things I saw Friday night was how XL looked at that woman, and how the children saw it, taking in another dose of shame while the good news played on a cartoon.