“I don’t think men do that.”
“Trash-talk don’t have a gender. Whoever’s missing gets talked about. It’s a rule.”
“So if I’m not at the bonds office, you and Connie talk about me?”
“Damn straight we do. Unless Vinnie isn’t there. Then we talk about him.”
“Do you have any idea how we’re going to capture Antwan with all his gang around him?”
“I got it all worked out. We go to the office and get some stuff from the storeroom. You can’t imagine what’s back there. I’m saying we get loaded for bear. We go out there nuclear. There’s rocket launchers and some really nasty-looking automatic weapons. There’s stuff in that storeroom that makes an assault rifle look like a toy.”
“We can’t go onto a public basketball court with a rocket launcher.”
“Sure we can. People do it all the time. Don’t you look at the news?”
“Think of something else.”
“Okay, but that was my best idea. You’ve gotten real picky since you became a butcher.”
“I’m not a butcher. I was never a butcher.”
“Well, you worked for a butcher.”
“I say we go with the original plan of watching him and waiting for him to get separated from his posse.”
“I guess we could do that, but it hasn’t got much bling to it.”
“I don’t care about bling. I want to bring him in with as little violence and bloodshed as possible.”
“If that’s what you want, then that’s what we’ll do, but you’re never gonna sell movie rights that way.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“You got that right. If this was a movie I’d have a rocket launcher.”
We hung out at the basketball court until two o’clock, when the game broke up. Antwan had sat the game out, not saying much, not moving around. His ear was covered with a gigantic white bandage. He left with Bear, walking slowly, heading toward Bear’s apartment.
“Antwan looks like he got a headache,” Lula said. “He should have taken more drugs. I’m sure he got access to a lot.”
We crept along in the Firebird, keeping them in sight, keeping as much distance as possible.
“I don’t suppose you got any bullets in your gun yet,” Lula said.
“I don’t like shooting people.”
“Yeah, but ironic how that works out.”
Bear and Antwan stepped into a fast-food burger place, and we waited a block away. Ten minutes later they came out carrying bags of food and kept walking toward Bear’s apartment.
“They’re going in there and eat lunch and play videogames and take a nap,” Lula said. “They aren’t coming out for a long time, and I gotta go potty.”
“You went to the ladies’ room at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”
“Yeah, but I had the extra-large-size soda, and my body processes food real fast.”
“No problem. I’ll get out here and watch the apartment until you get back.”
“Yeah, but you’re not exactly inconspicuous standing here on the corner.”
“I’m fine. I’m in jeans and a T-shirt. I have a broken nose and finger. I look like everyone else.”
“You look like no one else. You’re white.”
“I could be Hispanic.”
“Not on your best day,” Lula said. “Besides, this is the wrong block for Hispanic. Hispanics get killed on this block.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I think we should go shopping. There’s a shoe sale at Macy’s. And I might put one of them Brahmin bags on layaway.”
“This was your idea. Remember how I needed money, and you said we should go after Antwan Brown?”
“I temporarily forgot about that while I was thinking about how fine I’d look with my new handbag.”
“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to go to the mall. It’s just a couple miles away from the personal products plant. You could drop me off there and go shopping while I fill out an application.”
“I got a better idea. You sit in the car, and I’ll run across to the burger place to tinkle.” She took her Glock out of her purse and gave it to me. “If anyone tries to steal my wheel covers you have to shoot them.”
TWENTY-FOUR
LULA RETURNED TO the car with a bag of food.
“They had apple pies in there,” she said. “I thought it would help us pass the time if we had apple pies.”
We ate our apple pies and watched the apartment building. A little after three o’clock Bear came out and walked up the street. Antwan wasn’t with him.
“You got your wish,” Lula said. “It looks to me like Antwan is in there all by himself.”