Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) (4 page)

“Well, anyway, I ain’t gonna make my baby go through that. I ain’t gonna mark her fo’ that crazy man.”

“Kill ’im,” Right said again.

Markham farted.

Stony lit a match and blew it out to cover the smell.

Socrates felt how small his room was with all those men in it. Twenty-seven years in an Indiana prison had prepared him for the poverty he lived in. But he wished that he had a bigger room.

Maybe it was time to move.

“It’s a hard choice, boys,” Socrates said. “If it is Petis been robbin’ an’ killin’ ’round here you could bet he gonna keep on doin’ it. He got the taste’a blood now. It comes easy too ’im. You cain’t talk to ’im, warn ’im, wound ’im, or turn him in to the cops.”

“Like I said.” Right let his statement hang in the air.

“I don’t know about that, Brother Right,” Socrates said. “We might be cornered, but we’re not animals—not yet.”

“So you sayin’ t’let it lie?” Right asked.

S
ocrates tried to think of an answer to Right’s question. It wasn’t the first time that he’d had such a problem.

He’d been thinking about Fitzroy ever since Howard and his friends had come over. When they told him about Petis he knew what they wanted.

They wanted him to kill Petis. After all, he was the one among them that had gone to prison for double murder. He knew how to do it.

Just like with Fitzroy.

Crazy Fitzroy who swore he had killed a man
and
woman from every race on the face of the earth. Fitzroy who raped you to show that he was boss; and broke your bones just to hear them snap.

The head warden gave Clyde Brown to Fitzroy for a cellmate as a kind of reward for keeping the other inmates down.

Clyde was the best cat burglar in the state. He came into prison cocksure and ready to play his time. Warden Johns decided, no one knew why, to make it his special province to break Clyde down.

And so Fitzroy.

In two weeks Clyde had lost his looks; he’d gone gaunt and thin. Bruises and blood marred the boy’s frightened face. He developed a twitch and would yell out loud at odd times for no reason at all.

Fitzroy’s cell was never locked and so one night Clyde escaped. Socrates saw Clyde go by his cell in a shuffling sort of run. The boy was crying and looking behind him with the fear of death. Fitzroy came on a few minutes later, smiling and walking fast.

The yell from Clyde that tore through the prison was enough to chill even Socrates’ hot blood.

Socrates was no angel. He had brutalized men. But what Fitzroy did was different….

Or maybe, Socrates thought many years later in that room with his four friends, he wasn’t so different.

The next night Socrates jammed the locking mechanism in his cell door. He stuck in a tin fork that made a sound like the lock catching. After the cell lights went out Socrates shoved his door free and walked out into the aisle.

He approached Fitzroy’s cell with no mind at all. All he knew was that he had to stop what was going on. All he knew was that he couldn’t live in his cell with what was happening down the hall.

Clyde, completely naked, had wedged himself between the toilet and the wall. Socrates didn’t know if it was because he was trying to hide or if Fitzroy liked to keep him there.

Fitzroy lay back on his bunk, naked to the waist.

If Socrates’ thinking mind had been working at that moment he would have known why men were afraid of Fitzroy. The man was a giant. Big arms, big chest, and a big stomach that seemed to be stretched over a solid oaken barrel.

He had big hands too, but Socrates’ hands were larger.

Fitzroy lifted his head and focused his mud-colored eyes on the intruder. A smile came to his ragged lips. Even the scars on his face seemed to grin.

Now Socrates had a new thought in his mind.
If he gets to his feet I’m dead
.

By the time Fitzroy was sitting up Socrates was there over him. Before he could say a word Socrates struck with both fists in rapid order. The rock breakers, those hands were called.

Clyde grinned when he heard the muffled snap of vertebrae.

“
I
’m sayin’,” Socrates said, looking the old veteran in the eye, “that killin’ ain’t no answer for civilized men. I’m sayin’ that bein’ right won’t wash the blood from your hands.”

The men listened. Stony even nodded.

“So they ain’t nuthin’ t’do, right?” Markham asked.

“I thought you said that you had somewhere t’be, Markham?” Socrates said in a friendly tone.

“Uh, well, I thought well, you know …”

“You could go on, brother.” Socrates stepped aside to make a way through the door. “We could play some checkers next week.”

“Yeah,” Right said derisively. “Go on.”

“Well, you know, my wife ’spects me home sometimes.”

Nobody spoke as Markham pushed himself up from the cushions. They were quiet as he pulled on his sweater and looked around the couch to make sure that nothing had fallen out of his pockets.

Markham tripped going through the doorway to the kitchen. Nobody said anything; nobody moved to see if he was okay.

No one spoke until they heard the door to the outside slam shut.

{2.}

“Shit,” Right said. “Fuckin’ coward need t’run home t’his woman. Maybe he should sen’ her down here.”

“I’ont know, man.” Stony coughed and ran his hand over his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “Markham mighta been right. What could we do about dope addicts an’ killers?”

“Yeah,” Socrates said. “At least Markham know what he can do, an’ what he cain’t. That’s all I ever ask of a man: tell me where you stand. That’s all. You tell me where you stand an’ then I know where I’m comin’ from.”

Right and Stony nodded their agreement. Howard just sat there; distrust and fear in his eyes.

“’Cause we don’t want nobody cain’t stand up to what’s got to be done,” Socrates said.

“An’just what is that?” Howard asked.

“What’s the biggest problem a black man have?” Socrates asked as if the answer was as plain as his wallpaper.

“A black woman,” Right said.

They all laughed—even Socrates.

“The po-lice,” said Howard.

Socrates smiled. “Yeah, yeah. It’s always trouble on the street—and at home too. But they ain’t the problem—not really.”

“So what is?” Stony asked.

“Bein’ a man, that’s what. Standin’ up an’ sayin’ what it is we want an’ what it is we ain’t gonna take.”

“Say to who?” Right asked. “To the cops?”

“I don’t believe in goin’ t’no cops ovah somethin’ like this here,” Socrates said. “A black man—no matter how bad he is—bein’ brutalized by the cops is a hurt to all of us. Goin’ to the cops ovah a brother is like askin’ for chains.”

“Uh-huh.” Stony was frowning, trying to understand. “Then who we talk to? If not the cops, then a minister?”

Socrates just stared.

“I know,” Howard said.

“What?” asked Stony.

“He wanna go up to Petis. He wanna talk to him.”

Socrates smiled like a teacher approving of his student’s lesson.

“Naw,” Right said. “How talkin’ to a killer gonna help?”

“He the one we mad at,” Howard answered. “He the one done it. That’s just it. Go up to the motherfucker an’ tell’im we know who he is. Tell ’im that we ain’t gonna take that shit. Tell’im what you said, Right. Tell’im that he’s just hangin’ by a thread.”

“You wit’ me?” Socrates asked the men.

No one said no.

{3.}

Socrates and his friends went to see Petis the next afternoon. They came to the last door on the left-hand side of the Magnolia Terrace, a horseshoe shaped court of cheap bungalow apartments. When they got there Socrates turned to his companions and said, “Let me do the talkin’.”

Then he knocked and waited.

He knocked again.

A group of seven small children cruised by on plastic tricycles. They made squealing noises with their mouths and turned away down the cracked cement lane that the fourteen bungalows faced.

The thought of children near the dope fiend steeled Socrates.

“Who is it?” a voice called from behind the door.

“Me, Petis. Socrates Fortlow.”

“What you want, man?” the husky voice whined. “I’m sleepin’ in here.”

“I got money on my mind, Petis,” Socrates said. “Money an’ how you’n me could get some.”

Stony shifted from one foot to the other.

Right rubbed his nose with the back of his paralyzed hand.

The door came open and the men behind Socrates squared off. Petis stood there dressed only in a white T-shirt and blue boxer shorts.

Petis had the doorknob in his left hand, a six-inch carving knife in his right. He took a moment too long deciding whether to slam or to stab. In that moment of indecision Socrates delivered a terrible uppercut to the young man’s gut.

The wind forced out of Petis smelled like the breath of a corpse. The tallish, loose-skinned man hurtled backwards and landed on the floor. Socrates walked in quickly and kicked the knife away.

A teenaged girl came running out of a closet. She was brown with small bare breasts and tight black panty hose. She looked at Socrates as if maybe he was there for her.

“Get your clothes on, girl,” Socrates said. “An’ get yo’ ass outta here.”

Petis was vomiting on the floor.

“I thought you said that you just wanted to talk to’im,” Howard whispered in Socrates’ ear.

“This is talk, Howard. It’s the way to get a tough boy like Petis to pay attention.”

“You from my daddy?” the girl asked Socrates. She had pulled a short dress on over her head.

He regarded her for a long moment.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right,” he said at last. “Now get yo’ ass home.”

“What you gonna do to Petty?”

“Talk to’im is all.”

That seemed to be enough for her. She grabbed a sack purse from out of the closet and made it through the group of men to the door.

“Close it,” Socrates said after she was gone.

It was dark in the room, with only a few shafts of light making it through the drawn and battered Venetian blinds. Petis had stopped throwing up but he was still gasping after his breath.

One of the men flipped the light switch. The bare bulb from the overhead fixture could hardly have been called light.

When Socrates took a step back from Petis he noticed that the floor was sticky. He saw the bottle lying on its side. Somebody had spilled an orange soda and hadn’t cleaned up.

The room was no larger than Socrates’ living room. The only furniture was a straightback wooden chair and slender blue-and-white-striped mattress. Socrates pulled Petis up by an arm and put him in the chair.

Petis was young but his skin was old; gray instead of brown, loose and pocked. His eyes were dark but otherwise colorless.

“We know what you been doin’, Petis,” Socrates said.

“What?”

Socrates slapped the young man so hard that he fell.

“Get back up in the chair, boy.”

“Don’t talk, Petis. Nobody wanna hear what you got to say. We come here to talk to you. What you got to do is listen.”

While Petis reseated himself he looked around for an escape. When he saw that there was none he gave his attention to his bald accuser.

“We know what you been doin’, Petis. We got a witness to you killin’ LeRoy. We had a trial too…”

Socrates paused and grinned his most evil grin.

Petis belched and grabbed his stomach with both hands.

“One man wanted just to shoot you. One man wanted to go to the police. We probably should kill you, I know. But finally we decided on sumpin’ else.”

“What?” Petis asked quietly so that he wouldn’t be hit again.

“You got to go, boy.”

“What you sayin’?”

“You got to go. Get outta here. Get outta this whole neighborhood. You got to go or else we kill you.”

“I ain’t done nuthin’,” Petis said.

Socrates slapped him.

“I ain’t!” Petis sobbed loudly.

Socrates hit him again.

“You got to be gone by six, Petis. Six or we come in here and cut yo’ th’oat wit’ yo’ own knife.” Socrates picked up the blade and shoved it in his belt.

“Six?”

Socrates slapped him one more time. “Now what’d I say?”

“Okay, man. Okay. But I got to say goodbye to my mother first.”

“I don’t think you understand—if I see you anywhere but on a bus outta Watts I’m gonna kill you. Kill you.

“There’s twelve men behind me on this, junkie. Us four and another eight from our group. We gonna kill you if we see you. An’ yo’ momma ain’t gonna stop that.”