“We could talk to his fool friend, see if Mario said anything about it to him.”
“Yeah,” said Durham. “Let’s do that.”
DONUT’S apartment was dirty and it smelled like resin and cigarettes. A window air conditioner ran low and kept the smell in the two-bedroom unit. Donut sat on the couch, wires and controllers around him from the PlayStation 2 connected to his TV. Normally these things were on the living-room table in front of the couch, along with his ashtray and other smoking paraphernalia, his cell, and his CD and game cases. But Bernard Walker had kicked the table over on its side as soon as Donut had let him in, and now Donut’s shit was scattered about the room.
“I don’t know nothin’,” said Donut. His hands were between his thighs, and he was scissoring his knees together compulsively while staring straight ahead.
Walker bent his long torso forward so that he could speak softly to the ugly man on the couch. “We ain’t asked you nothin’ yet.”
“Go ahead and ask me whateva. I got no call to lie.”
“Just wanted to come by and thank you for looking after my brother like you did,” said Dewayne Durham, standing beside Walker, his voice friendly and calm.
“This how y’all thank me?” said Donut, his hands spread toward the mess on the living-room floor.
“I got a couple of questions for you, is all,” said Durham. “Answer straight, and we’ll be gone.”
“I’m listenin’.”
“That gun my brother had, the one he used on that girl. He tell you where he got it from?”
“That Foreman dude,” said Donut.
“Good. You doin’ all right. Keep answering fast like that and don’t think too hard before you do. Now, Mario say anything about his conversation with Foreman? When he returned the gun to him, I mean.”
“Like what?”
“Like, did Foreman know that Mario had used that gun on the girl?”
Donut nodded quickly. “He said Foreman knew it was a murder gun. He knew.”
Durham looked over at Walker, who nodded one time. They stood there for a while, saying nothing. Donut guessed they were deciding what to do with him. He knew a lot of shit. He prayed they wouldn’t kill him for what he knew. And now he had put the finger on Foreman, too, that big horse, used to be a cop. But he could worry about Foreman later. First thing was, he needed to get out of this situation right here.
“Donut?” said Durham.
“Huh?”
“Listen close.”
“I am.”
“You know where Mario’s at?”
Donut knew. He knew the address of that girl he was stayin’ with and he knew the phone number, too. It was written down on a pad of paper, lying somewhere on the floor with everything else. Mario had called him that morning, talkin’ about the girl and how her ass looked in her jeans, and also about the trouble he was in. But Donut wasn’t about to tell Dewayne Durham all that.
“No,” said Donut. “I ain’t talked to him since he left out of here.”
“That’s good for you,” said Walker. “You need to keep it that way.”
“You know I will.”
“And you do see him again,” said Durham, “you don’t want to be getting him involved in that dummy bullshit you peddlin’ out on the street.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Aiight, then,” said Durham. “You got my cell number, case you remember anything else?”
“Mario wrote it down. I know where it is.”
“Let’s go, Zu.”
Walker stepped on Donut’s case for NBA Street and broke it on the way out the door.
In the Benz, Dewayne Durham used his cell to phone Ulysses Foreman. Walker listened to Durham question Foreman about the gun. Durham’s voice was cool and controlled. He never raised it once, not even at the end, when he said to Foreman, “We ain’t settled this yet.”
“What’d he say?”
“Said he knew the gun had been fired, but Mario told him he was just testin’ it, like it was the Fourth of July, sumshit like that.”
“So he says he didn’t know.”
Durham nodded. “That’s what he says.”
DONUT looked through the slots of his venetian blinds, waiting for the Benz to leave his parking lot. When he was sure they were gone, Donut phoned his friend.
“Mario.”
“Dough?”
“Your brother was here, askin’ about some shit. That gun you used? Maybe it got used in another murder or somethin’ after you turned it in.”
“I ain’t know nothin’ about that.”
“I ain’t say you did.”