A cough from a porch was directed at him. “Hey, man. Hey,” the voice came down.
East looked, then stopped. It was a man, maybe thirty-five, maybe forty, a U who’d come to his house some days. The man sat drinking out of a tall paper cup.
“What you need?” East said.
It was strange what he knew and didn’t know. He knew this man, his secret hours. He remembered when he’d first showed up in the evening hours, still with a neatly made face, a thick gold band. Then he’d come more often. East remembered when he’d lost his job, and he’d marked the passage of drug time across the man’s face, the thinness he’d taken on and the way his eyes now had that light to them, that ingenious, failing light.
The man’s name was the one thing he didn’t know.
“What you doing now?” the man said.
“Nothing.”
“Where am I gon go?” asked the man indignantly.
East shrugged. He heard again what Fin had said. Submarine. People gonna have to look elsewhere. He knew a house a mile away, one that wasn’t Fin’s. But you didn’t talk about other houses you knew. You didn’t connect the dots.
The man coughed three times and spat out a large, silvery thing. “You don’t know? Unacceptable, man.”
East lowered his eyes and got walking again.
“Boy, don’t deny me,” the voice came, following him.
—
At eight, Sidney called him, told him where to go. A mile away—down off the south end of The Boxes. “Make sure you bring clothes for a couple days.”
“Fin told me,” East said.
“Course he did,” sneered Sidney. Then East’s phone died.
He bought a glazed doughnut to eat as he walked, then pulled down an orange off a low branch. He turned it in his hand as he walked, a small, heavy world. It was ripe, but he waited to eat it.
—
In the alleyway behind a line of stores, Michael Wilson was telling East about his car. Michael Wilson had the police interceptor and new glows down front and back and underneath. With a second battery Michael Wilson could run his system all night, loud as a club, and still crank it up and drive it away.
Michael Wilson was twenty—long body, long teeth, big brown eyes he liked to keep behind silver shades. Always laughing. Always telling a story. He had been a guy who came around The Boxes, sometimes keeping an eye, sometimes delivering a payday or food. He was an up-and-comer. He had gone away to college, UCLA, and East hadn’t seen him since. He’d been a lot of noise to start with, and now he impressed himself even more.
Michael Wilson was shucking peanuts out of a blue plastic bag, tossing the nuts into his mouth, flipping the shells over his shoulder onto the pavement. Michael Wilson worried that the other guys might be stupid. Said he didn’t have time to be riding with no one stupid, because stupid didn’t stay cooped up. Stupid infected everyone. Little gangsters always thought they had a code, when really what they had was a case of stupid. East nodded, and he pretended to listen, because Michael Wilson was going to be a part. But God damn, he thought.
For the longest time it was only the two of them. East checked his phone—dead. He shook his head. “What time you got?”
“Like nine,” said Michael Wilson.
“What is like nine?”
“It means almost nine. Approximately nine, motherfucker.”
East sighed. “Let me see your watch.” He grabbed Michael’s wrist, eyed the watch’s gold hands, the shining stones. “That’s eight fifty-four. Not like anything.”
“It’s like nine, old man,” Michael said.
A couple of raggedy cars and a blue minivan shared the early light. Bulky air conditioners rusted on raised pads, muscular posts sunk in concrete to protect them from the drivers. Most of the stores were dark. One Chinese restaurant belched its fryer smells, and the women peered out at the boys and smoked in the safety of their doorway.
The next to arrive was a pumpkin-shaped boy in a green shirt. He waddled slowly, carefully; fat made his face young, his gait ancient. He breathed hard, excited, scraping his feet as he came. “Whew,” he said. “Michael Wilson. What’s up.” They grabbed hands. Then Michael recognized him.
“I remember you. Walton? Wallace?”
“Walter.”
Michael laughed at himself. “I remember you was up in those computers. A little science man.”
“I remember you was going to college. You in charge of the laughing and lying, I guess.”
“You in charge of the eating,” said Michael Wilson. “Where’s your bag at?”
Michael Wilson had things in a glossy contoured bag with a gym name on it. It looked like a new shoe. East had his pillowcase and his orange.
“I got no fuckin bag,” Walter said. “I had no idea. I been all weekend at my uncle’s in Bakersfield. They picked me up off the street fifteen fuckin minutes ago.”
East eyed Walter. The fuckin. A soft boy sounding hard.
“I don’t know what they told you. We gonna be gone for days, son,” Michael Wilson said.