“Yo! You know what this is. You don’t gotta get hurt.”
Court was pleased this guy was getting right to it. After all, he didn’t have all night. He stopped, but he did not turn around. He just stood there, facing away. The three men behind came closer.
“Turn around, motherfucker. Do it slow.”
Court took a few calming breaths, but he did not turn.
“Yo, bitch! I’m talkin’ to you!”
Now Court slowly pivoted to face the threat.
The three attackers stood only six feet away on the sidewalk. Court scanned their eyes. It was always the same in a threat situation. Determine the will, and determine the skill. He pegged the leader as cocky, amped up from excitement, but not from concern. The other two tried to show confidence, but their furtive eyes sold them out.
All three clutched weapons. The leader had a small gunmetal blue pistol and the two men with him— actually now to Court they appeared to be teenagers—each held up a knife.
Court spoke calmly. “Evenin’, gents.”
The leader cocked his head in surprise. After a second, the thin black man said, “I want that wallet. And that phone.” He looked around on the street, then asked, “Where your car at?”
Court ignored the man’s voice and focused on the pistol in his hand. “What do you have there?”
“It’s a gun, motherfucker!”
“Right. What kind of gun?”
“The kinda gun that’s gonna pop a cap in your ass if you don’t pull out that wallet and drop it off, real nice and slow.”
The man raised the pistol to eye level, in Court’s face now. Even though the light was bad, Court was able to identify the weapon quickly here, just three feet from the tip of his nose.
He sighed. Disappointed. “An L380? What the hell am I supposed to do with that piece of shit?”
The armed man stiffened his gun arm, then smiled. “Oh, I got it. You tryin’ to die tonight.”
Court looked around at the two others. “Any chance you kids are strapped?” The boys glanced at their boss, confused. After a second they held their knives up higher. “I didn’t think so.” Court looked up into the wet sky with a half smile. “Just my luck.”
3
Marvin had been pointing guns at people since before his thirteenth birthday, and in all this time he’d never seen anyone so utterly unimpressed. Normally eyes widened to saucers and fixed on the muzzle of his weapon, and no matter what he did for the rest of the encounter, the person at gunpoint never ever glanced away from the instrument in his hand. They rarely even blinked.
But this guy turned to the other men, looked around at the street, into the sky, and at the windows of the duplexes all around. He didn’t seem at all concerned that there was a motherfucking gat in his motherfucking face.
The white man didn’t look high, and he didn’t smell drunk. His languid eyes were clear, his relaxed body did not sway. For some reason he just didn’t give a damn.
And this infuriated Marvin. He had no plan B for intimidating a victim.
The two boys stepped to either side of their prey. Now Marvin had a pistol pointed to the man’s forehead, and his crew had stilettos in range on the left and right.
But the white man wasn’t worried about the knives, either. He just sighed more deeply now, his shoulders slumped all the way down. “Any chance I can persuade you guys to step off? I don’t have any cash, no phone, no car. I don’t have a thing to offer you but trouble, and I promise you, I’m a lot more trouble than I’m worth. What do you say we call it a night and—”
Marvin was tired of this asshole. He stepped forward a half step, raising the gun higher to drive his point home. As he did so the white man’s left hand shot up and forward and he spun on his left foot in a blur, pirouetting his body out of the line of fire. Marvin was stunned by the movement. As the man turned, his strong hand locked onto the slide of the pistol, just aft of the muzzle, and he shoved the weapon to the side and down. Marvin instinctively pulled the trigger. The Lorcin cracked loud in the empty street, but the white man had both rotated his body away to Marvin’s right and pushed the gun down low to Marvin’s left just as it fired.
Marvin realized instantly he had missed.
James leapt into the air, the stiletto dropped to the ground as he grabbed at his lower leg with both hands. He fell into the grass by the sidewalk and wailed.
The kid had taken the .380 hollow-point round through the top of his foot.
Marvin knew he had fucked up, but he still had the gun in his hand, and for some inexplicable reason, his intended victim released his hold of the weapon. The man turned away from Marvin now, his attention on Darius and his blade, leaving his back exposed, just a couple of feet from Marvin’s gun.
Marvin couldn’t believe this fool could be so stupid as to let go of a loaded gun and then turn his back on it. Marvin raised the weapon and pointed it at the back of the fool’s head, ready to kill the man before he did anything to Darius. He pulled the trigger.
Click.