“You believe him?”
“I did when he said it to me, yeah, but I don’t really know. It’s like, people say they’re gonna do shit, but . . .” Salim shrugged, and Ray took his cue from that.
“Maybe you should have said something about it to that cop.”
Salim just stared at him.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I got to raise the money,” Salim said blandly.
Ray stared straight ahead. Don’t you do it . . .
“Well, you have the T-shirts, right?”
Salim hesitated for a beat. “Yup.”
“Well then, there you go.”
They sat there and pondered the crusty-eyed street slowly coming to life around them.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Salim said. “How much was my bail.”
“Twenty-five hundred.”
“Yeah, see.” Salim clucked his tongue. “I’m really sorry about last night, I was in fear for my life and I really din’t have no choice but to come to you, but if you had lent me the thousand? You’d’ve saved yourself fifteen hundred dollars, you know what I’m saying?”
Ray laughed. “Always looking out for me, huh?”
“Nah, I’m just sayin’.” Salim shrugged, and the car returned to silence.
It had been a raw and freaky evening, though, and as the sun continued to climb, striking first the rooftops then slowly working its way down brick by brick to the street, a fatigue headache or possibly something else began to set up house in Ray at the same incremental pace.
“I need to go home,” he finally said.
Salim exhaled long and slow, then nodded in acceptance. “All right,” the words as hushed as the hour.
Eyes narrowed against the growing brightness, Ray stared straight ahead.
Salim opened the car door and stepped out onto the street. But then, as if belatedly struck by an unspoken demand, unspoken plea, he abruptly ducked back into the car and extended his hand.
“Yo, Mr. Mitchell,
thank
you.”
And Ray was happy.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Price is the author of six previous novels, including the national best-sellers
Freedom land
and
Clockers,
which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1999 he received a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His fiction, articles and essays have appeared in
Best American Essays 2002,
the
New York Times,
the
New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Esquire, The Village Voice,
and
Rolling Stone.
He has also written numerous screenplays, including
Sea of Love, Ransom,
and
The Color of Money.
He lives in New York City with his wife, the painter Judith Hudson, and his two daughters.
ALSO BY RICHARD PRICE
The Wanderers
Bloodbrothers
Ladies’ Man
The Breaks
Clockers
Freedomland
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2003 by Richard Price
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York . Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Price, Richard.
Samaritan / Richard Price.
p. cm.
1. Police—New Jersey—Fiction. 2. Victims of violent crimes—Fiction. 3. High school teachers—Fiction. 4. Policewomen—Fiction. 5. New Jersey—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.R544 A78 2003
813'.54—dc21 2002069378
eISBN:
978-1-4000-4063-6
v3.0