“You two were arguing about something?”
“My boy just gets passionate about shit sometimes. So do I, I guess.”
Junie took a sip of his drink. “What you think about Jeff George and the new coach? He gonna listen to Schott?”
“George don’t need a coach,” said Strange. “You ask me, man needs a shrink.”
Quinn came back and finished his beer. As they settled up their tab, Quinn’s cell vibrated in the pocket of his jeans. He answered the phone and the lines in his face smoothed out. Strange figured it was Sue on the line.
“What’s up?” said Strange when Quinn was done.
“Sue’s all stoked. She’s over at the Black Cat at some show.”
“On Fourteenth?”
“Yeah. Says she was up front, center stage for this guy Steve Wynn. She’s fired up and wants to see me.”
“We better get going, then. All that piss and vinegar you got in you, you don’t want to waste it on me.”
They put down twenty on fifteen and crossed the room. Quinn nudged Strange and directed his attention to the man in the black sunglasses.
“What the fuck is he starin’ at?” said Quinn with a scowl.
“He ain’t starin’ at nothin’, Terry. The man is blind.”
“I’m just fuckin’ with you, man.”
Out in the night they moved toward the Caprice. Strange held out his keys.
“You feel like driving?”
“Why, you got drunk on one scotch?”
“Nah, just tired.”
“I better not,” said Quinn. “I can’t see for shit at night.”
“You got driving glasses, don’t you?”
“I didn’t bring ’em. And I probably wouldn’t wear them if I had.”
“Afraid someone might mistake you for your boy Lewis?”
“Something like that.”
They stopped at the car.
“We all right?” said Strange.
Quinn shook Strange’s hand. “You know it, Derek.”
“Always interesting with you around, buddy.”
“Yeah,” said Quinn. “You, too.”
chapter 20
TURN this joint up right here, yang.”
“Missy?”
“It’s got Jay-Z and Ludacris on it, too.”
“I ain’t like that song.”
“Why not?”
“She be talkin’ about not wantin’ no one-minute man. Cuttin’ on some dude ’cause he busts a nut in her too quick.”
“So?” said James.
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” said Jeremy. “She’s complainin’ when she ought to be thankin’ him. What the fuck’s up with that?”
The Coates cousins were rolling down the road in their Nissan to one of those Chang markets where they knew they sold the cheapest White Owls. James wanted to smoke a fat one while they watched that new Bokeem Woodbine movie, called BlackMale, they’d bought off the street. All they had was rolling papers around the crib; James said that papers weren’t good enough when you wanted a long-player smoke. Plus they could pick up more beer at the market while they were there.
They’d been goin’ hard at the hydro and alcohol since the afternoon. They didn’t have other relatives or girlfriends in the area, and neither of them had made any friends. There wasn’t anything to do but hang together and get their heads up when they weren’t working. They were high now, and knew that they could get higher still.
WELL behind the Nissan, under the cover of other vehicles, Long and Jones cruised in the Maxima. They had been listening to 95.5 on the radio for a while, because they had one of those blocks of music goin’ without commercials. They were letting it play.
“How you want to do it?” said Long.
“It’s on you, Nut. You got to call it.”
“We could trap ’em at a light.”
“I don’t like it,” said Jones. “Too many witnesses like that.”
“Yeah, you right.” Long’s thumb rubbed the barrel of the five-shot Taurus revolver in his lap. He had been rubbing at it, the sweat from his thumb oil-streaking the gun, for the past couple of miles. “Ain’t no good place to do it, right?”
“You want me to, I’ll pull the trigger.”
Long wanted nothing more. But he said, “It’s my time.”
“Let’s just see where they goin’,” said Jones.
Long reached over to the radio and hiked up the volume.
“You like that song?” said Jones.
“Missy? It’s somethin’ to listen to.”
Jones shook his head. “I don’t know what that bitch is complainin’ about, though. Do you?”