Dodgers (4 page)

Michael Wilson held his hands up, shifting gears smoothly. “Right, man,” he sang. “Just running the numbers, man.”

East breathed out and let his eyes adjust to the map, the thick red and black and blue cords inching state to state. Dense and jumpy. Every road had a number and joined up a hundred times with other roads. He saw how they would go. This was like the mazes they used to do in school while the teacher slept. What they said in school was: Don't worry. Keep looking at it. You can always get there.

After Sidney lectured them on the route and the job, Johnny handed each boy a wallet. East examined his. Inside, in a plastic window, was a California state driver's license with his face looking up at him. Dimly he remembered this, his picture taken in front of a blue cloth. Somebody he'd never seen, in some room the winter before. Some of the boys came in for it. Never asked why.

The work was good—the two photos, the watermarked top coat. Some kind of bar code on the back.

“Shit looks real,” Michael Wilson said.

“It is real,” Walter said.

“
Antoine Harris
. Sixteen years old,” read East. “How you say it's
real
?”

“It ain't my name either,” agreed Michael Wilson.

“Listen,” said Sidney. “What is real? It's in the system. It's legit. Police pulls you over and looks you up, it's real. License like that cost a man on the street ten thousand dollars. So don't lose it. Read what it says and remember it in case some police asks you who you are.”

“Kwame Harris,” said Walter. “What, him and me supposed to be brothers?”

“You the one sat closer to the table,” giggled Michael Wilson.

“Cousins,” said Sidney. “Cousins. Know each other a little. Not too much.”

“Here is one for you, Michael,” Johnny said. “Give me yours. I'll keep it for you.”

“If someone asks you where you're going,” said Sidney, “you're going to a family reunion. If someone asks you where, you say Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If someone asks you where in Milwaukee, you don't know. That's three questions.”

Johnny said, “Don't let nobody ask you more than three questions.”

“We just some lying motherfuckers all across America,” said Michael Wilson.

“You're getting it.” Sidney snapped out a thick stack of money, and the air between the boys grew quiet and warm. All the eyes watched as he dealt twenties from his left hand into his right.

“Three hundred,” he said to Walter. “Three hundred,” he said to East. He passed the two piles. The rest, a bigger stack, went to Michael Wilson.

“Wait,” Walter said. “I'm going out five days,
killing someone
, and all I get is three hundred dollars?”

Johnny moved in. “Boy, this ain't compensation.”

“This is expenses,” bristled Sidney. “You pay cash. There is no credit card. There is no gas card. You dig? Ain't staying in motels. You go in and wash up in a rest stop, in a McDonald's. You ain't wasting time. You ain't making records of where you are. You the one supposed to
understand
this.”

“Walter, you're very smart,” said Johnny. “But smarter people than you puzzled this out. So pretty please, shut the fuck up.”

Walter nodded, swallowing it down.

“Michael Wilson, you got a thousand dollars. If there's a problem? You fix it. This money ain't for clothes or having a good time. This money ain't yours. The oldest one gets to hold. He gets to solve problems.”

“All right,” said Michael Wilson. He looked around at the younger boys significantly as he tucked the money away.

“So that's your ride today. Right there,” said Johnny.

They all followed Johnny's eyes around the lot. The blue minivan was what he was looking at.

“What?” said Michael.

“Let me show you,” Johnny said.

“Show me what? You chose the sorriest car you could find?”

Johnny took a handful of Michael Wilson and shoved him along ahead. “This a
job
car, boys. This is my gift to you.” He railed at them quietly. “Reliable. Invisible. Rebuilt. New six-cylinder, three-point-eight. New transmission. New suspension. New tires, brakes, battery. Doesn't look new, but it drives new. You can sleep in it. Most important, you ain't gonna look like ignorant gang boys, which is what, in fact, you
are
. Wisconsin plates. In this car you look like four mama's boys going to a family reunion, which is what you
want
to look like.
Please don't give me a ticket, officer.
” He popped the back gate. Three cases of bottled water sat behind the rearmost seat. “You ain't got to love it. You ain't even got to bring it back. But this is the right car for the job.”

“And what the fuck do we have here,” Sidney said, looking up.

It was East's little brother. Shambling and grinning. He was small and two years younger than East. Lighter-skinned and already beginning to bald. But he had a sharp easiness. There was already something chiseled into him: Ty didn't care. He didn't want to be loved or trusted. He was capable and unafraid and undisturbed by anything he'd seen or done so far.

“Ty-monster, sneaking little thirty-six chambers motherfucker,” said Johnny. They touched hands.

“Ty,” said Sidney warily.

The other two boys stared. Ty ignored them, ignored East, completely. He sat down on the bumper of Johnny's black car and matter-of-factly drew a gun and reloaded the clip with bullets loose in the pocket of his blue T-shirt.

“This boy here,” Johnny laughed.

Ty finished and put the gun straight down under his waistband. When he stood up from the bumper, the barrel stood out cock-straight in his pants.

“Which reminds me,” Sidney said. “Give it up. Phones. Guns. Any ID you got. I need it right now.”

“
Fuck
that,” Ty snorted.

“Whatever you got,” said Sidney, unflinching. “Weapons. Knife or stick. Any digital other than a watch. If you got a bottle of something. Whatever you don't want the sheriff of White Town to find on you. Give it up right now.”

East had come with just his phone, but the others all had something. Michael Wilson gave up a small bag and papers. Walter gave up a knife—a Korean type for street fights. So light and springy it would shiver inside you.

Sidney beckoned. “East? What else?”

“Nothing, man.”

“Don't make me fuck you up.”

He sniffed. “Fin told me, don't bring nothing.”

“All right,” said Johnny, and he and Sidney glanced at each other. They didn't ask Ty, just closed in. He twisted and swore while they held his hands. Johnny hung him up, and Sidney patted him down. They took just the one gun from his pants. Sidney examined it.

“Man,
fuck
you,” said Ty, wrenching his wrists free and rubbing them.

“Thank you for checking your weaponry at the door,” Johnny said, taking it over.

“You best keep that for me.”

“I'm keeping it already.”

“Ridiculous,” Ty snorted, shaking his clothes back right. “Sent to shoot a man with no guns.”

East studied his brother. So content in his fury. Still little and raw but ready, happy to strike. So he had known about the job too. They hadn't had to tell him what to do—only the where and who.

“Get close to where you're headed, you'll get guns,” Sidney said. “Until then, we need you clean. We need you to be angels.” He wiped his mouth with his bare forearm—his tattoos glistened wet. “You think it's the same out there? But you don't know. It ain't. Them police don't budget on you. That's their country. They love a little Negro boy. They pat your ass down and you go to jail. You go to jail, the job ain't done. And if the job ain't done, Fin goes away.” Suddenly, full-muscled, he lunged at Michael Wilson and bashed him back into the side of the van. East looked up, surprised.

“You listening to me, smiley-face motherfucker?” Sidney spat. He bared his teeth and raised his forehead to Michael's chin like a gouge.

“Sidney, man. We got it,” East said. Straight bullying the lead man, he thought. Setting up the whole thing.

Sidney was wound way past tight. “The
job
. Do it the way we tell you. Got something funny to say now?”

“No,” said Michael Wilson, clutching his sunglasses.

“Anyone?”

“No,” said East. “We're good to go.”

Johnny flexed the black rails of his arms. “See, we're being polite to you today, the better for your educational purpose. But do exactly what the fuck we say.”

“We got it,” said East again.
Patient,
he reminded himself. A moment passed, the six of them wary and bareheaded in the sun.

“All right.” Sidney wiped his mouth, then settled a little at last. “When you get into Iowa, look at the map. You gonna call for directions. Call this number.” He opened the road atlas to the map of Iowa. A pink phone-sex street flyer was taped over its eastern half.

“This number here?” said Michael Wilson.

“This number here. When the operator asks what you want, you say, ‘I want to talk to Abraham Lincoln.' ”

“You what?” Michael Wilson broke up first.

Sidney waited bitterly. “Laugh all you want. But remember.”

“Abraham Lincoln gonna say, ‘Hi, Michael. Me so horny.' ”

Even East bent over laughing.

Sidney waited, jaw hard like a fist. “Make that call,” he said at last. “You'll get guns.”

“Paid-for guns. Guns we selected for you,” Johnny said. “Use them and lose them.”

“The gun man is a white man. So be cool.”

The van. East slipped away from the rest to examine it. Dingy outside—a few dents and scrapes untouched, dirty hubs, no polish for years. The upholstery showed wear. But the tires were brand-new, the tread still prickling. The windows were clean. Definitely submarine.

In his mind he was boiling it down: Drive the roads. Meet up for guns.
The job.
He tried to follow it in his mind, see where the problems were. But there was nothing to see. Only these boys. Kill a man? More like keep them from killing each other, these three boys, for two thousand miles in this ugly van. That was what they'd brought him in for. That was what he had to do to get back home.

Relieved of their things, armed with their new names and wallets full of twenties, they followed Johnny around the strip to the sporting goods store.

Above the clothes high banks of sick white lights spilled down.

“Dodgers cap. Dodgers shirts. Get you one,” Sidney was repeating.

Walter squeezed between the triple-XL ends of the racks.

“Dodgers are faggots,” said Ty.

“I don't disagree,” sighed Johnny. “What can I say? White people love baseball. White people love the Dodgers.”

“What I care what white people like?”

“Boy,” Johnny said, “the world is made of white people. So you just pick out a nice hat.”

All the clothes smelled of the chemicals that made them stiff and clean. The boys' hands sorted through the new and bright. East drifted back, found a rack marked
CLEARANCE
where the clothes didn't stink, grabbed two plain gray T-shirts with Dodgers script. Michael Wilson paid cash for it all at the register.

“Thank you for shopping with us today,” the girl in her braids gushed. “Go Dodgers!”

“Thank
you
,” Michael Wilson said over his sunglasses. “Okay, let's
vamos
, kids.”

Johnny reached for the receipt and crumpled it, then tore it to tiny bits.

Outside the damp, irrigated morning smell of Los Angeles flowers and fruit in the trees and small things rotting.

“Any problems? Any questions?” Sidney said. “Any last requests?”

East shrugged. Michael Wilson looked down into the white bag from the store.

“I don't think so,” said Walter.

“Get going, then,” Sidney said, already reaching for the door of Johnny's car. Like he couldn't be gone soon enough.

Michael Wilson had a key. East did too. Michael went for the driver's door. East ushered Walter up front. He tried the sliding door on the right side and popped it open.

In the dark of the van sat Fin, alone. Waiting in the middle seats, head bent low under the headliner, arms wrapped around his shoulders like pythons.

“Come on in,” he said.

They exchanged glances and climbed in—Michael and Walter in the front, Ty sliding into the back. East sat on the middle bench next to Fin.

“You boys know how to lock a car?”

“Yeah,” said Walter. “But we ain't gone anywhere yet.”

“You got keys, though. Lock the doors. Or someone like me will be sitting in here when you boys return. Got it?”

They all nodded assent.

Fin's voice was deep, but his face was pinched, unhappy. “If I could,” he said, “I'd do this myself. But I gotta trust you. You know the job?”

Four heads nodded yes.

“Michael Wilson, these the right boys?”

Michael Wilson found his voice, tried to steady it. “Yep.”

“Anyone can't do it, walk away now.”

Quietly they waited, reverent and impatient both.

From the center of the van came a black flash: Fin had drawn a fat pistol and cocked it, barrel at East's temple. East felt the cold metal burr scratching at his skin.

“You know East is my blood. Now I am sending you all out as my blood.”

East's eyes kept a flat stare. Practiced. Like he didn't care.

“This gonna go all right?” said Fin.

“It's gonna go all right,” Michael Wilson repeated.

Walter nodded, eyes large.

“I need you boys,” said Fin. “And I don't like to need.” Slowly he drew the gun back, then slipped it away somewhere. “Michael Wilson, you're in charge. You're the oldest. East and Walter, you keep him honest. Keep him straight. And, Ty, you make sure it gets done.”