Soul Circus(6)

“It’s loaded?” said Durham.

“You got to treat every gun like it’s live, boy.”

“I hear you. But is it?”

“Yeah, you’re ready.”

Durham nodded. “When you want it back?”

Forman weighed the plastic bag in his hand. “I say you rented about five days of strap right here.”

“That’s a hundred worth of hydro in that bag. I coulda bought a brand-new three eighty for, like, ninety dollas.”

“You talkin’ about a Davis? Go ahead and buy one, then. But give me back my real gun before you do.”

“That’s all right.”

“There you go then, little man. You want to ride in style, you got to pay.” Foreman pushed his hips forward to slip the bag into the pocket of his jeans. “What you need the gun for, anyway?”

“Need to make an impression on someone, is all it is. Why?”

“I can’t be fuckin’ with no murder gun, hear? You plan to blow someone up behind this shit, I got to know. ’Cause I can’t use no gun got a body attached to it. We straight?”

Durham nodded quickly. “Sure. Do me a favor, though. Don’t be tellin’ my brother about you rentin’ me this gun.”

“Why not?”

“He might say somethin’ to our mother. I don’t want her stressin’ over me.”

“I can understand that. We don’t need to be worryin’ your all’s moms.”

Foreman had already decided that he would tell Dewayne Durham that he had rented a gun to his half brother, Mario. Dewayne might not like that, but it would be better if he knew up front. Foreman figured, what harm would it do? This miniature man right here wouldn’t have the courage to use the gun anyway. Foreman would have it back in five days, and he had some free hydro to smoke in the bargain. Didn’t seem to be any kind of problem to it that he could see.

They shook hands. Durham ended the ritual with a weak finger snap.

“Let me get on back to Mer-land where I belong,” said Foreman.

“I got an appointment I got to get to my own self.”

“You need me to drop you somewheres close?” Foreman had no intention of driving Mario Durham anywhere, but he felt it made good sense to be polite, go through the usual motions and ask. Foreman’s business relationship with Dewayne Durham was on the rise.

“Nah, I’m just down there around the corner.”

“Awright, then,” said Foreman.

“Aiight.”

Durham dropped the pistol into the large pocket of his oversize jeans and stepped out of the car. He walked down the hill and cut left. Foreman watched him, wearin’ a boy’s-size Redskins jersey, a slip of nothing in his Hilfigers, hanging like some sad shit on his narrow ass. “I’m just down there around the corner”—that was some bullshit right there. Twigs didn’t own no car, or if he did it wasn’t nothin’ but a bomb. Most likely he was headed for the Metro station to catch a train to that appointment he had. Must be a real important date, too. Foreman had to admit, though, Mario Durham always did have some good chronic to smoke. Dewayne, a dealer over in Congress Heights, advanced him however much he wanted.

Durham walked toward the Metro station in Barry Farms, passing hard-eyed boys on the sidewalk, thinking how different it felt when you had a gun in your pocket. Different on the physical tip, like he’d grown taller and put on fifty pounds of muscle. Lookin’ in those young boys’ narrowed eyes, thinking, Yeah, go ahead, fuck with me; I got somethin’ right here gonna make your eyes go wide. Having that .38 just touching his leg through the fabric of his Tommys, it made him feel like he had four more inches of dick on him, too.

He’d catch a Green Line train and take it over the river to the Petworth stop. The man’s office, he’d seen the sign out front with the magnifying glass on it all those times he’d been to that titty bar they had across the street from it, on Georgia. His office, it wasn’t far from the station stop.

Durham wondered, could the man in that office find Olivia? Because his kid brother wasn’t gonna wait much longer without taking some kind of action his own self. Sign out front claimed they did investigations.

Strange Investigations.

That’s what it said.





chapter 4


THERE it is right there,” said Quinn, pointing to the in-dash cassette deck in Strange’s Chevy.

“He said ‘hug her.’ ” Strange sang the words: “ ‘Makes you want to love her, you just got to hug her, yeah.’ ”

“ ‘You just got to fuck her,’ ” said Quinn. “That’s what the man’s sayin’. Rewind it and listen to it again.”