Hunting in Harlem Page 22

  Once "good blocks" had been solidly established, they would slowly spread beyond their original perimeters. As one block filled, the next would be occupied, continuing the link beyond. When that pattern was established, new satellites would be started, maybe toward the north around Strivers Row and Hamilton Heights, maybe south closer to Central Park. The Horizon position was that this revolution wouldn't even need that many people, as Harlem was already populated by a vast majority of decent, hardworking folk. The monied newcomers would just be replacing the Terrible Tenth. Eventually, all the links would meet. Then the struggle would be over.

  All of this, which in class Snowden had found compelling in its own right, became even more engrossing when he was forced to sit in Lester's office and watch the man tape his map of Mount Morris to the wall, each property marked individually with either a green smiley face or circled repeatedly with red lines. Lester in lemon, the white shirt like the pith just below the peel, saying things like, "If we could just get rid of the bastards squatting at 671 West 117th, we could link the 3200 block of Lenox to Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard!"

  The files covering Lester's desk were numbered with addresses corresponding to the map's angrily circled residences and were attached with photos of the actual subjects — mug shots and surveillance shots.

  "So, come on, the suspense is killing me." Lester tittered. "Who do you want to hunt first?"

  Like a high diver preparing for the jump, Snowden was so far in his mind that all that noise, all the sounds of large objects banging the walls in the hall outside, all the screeches of children that accompanied them couldn't reach him. Lester loved this. Lester saw the concentration of his protege and thought this was impressive, this was the sign that great things were about to be done, said so out loud too, though that was ignored along with the rest of the clatter.

  Snowden had a plan, that much was clear. Snowden would do his absolute best to execute it as well, that was also evident. What was probably less clear, at least to Lester in his banana peel shoes, was that Snowden had no intention of killing anyone. Snowden had figured it out. Snowden had the answer. He would just tell the targeted bastard this time. I have been sent to kill you, he would say. Get out of town or be dead.

  "This is exciting, isn't it? Gives you a sense of power, right? There are some real scumbags in there to pick from, rapists, there's even a guy who served for kidnapping at 209 West 118th and that's a really important block so that could work great."

  First, Snowden's pick had to be somebody who wouldn't try to kill him just for breaking into his apartment, preferably somebody small with no violent history.

  "You know, don't feel you have to limit yourself to felons. There are a lot of petty menaces in the pile as well. If you want, I can find you good a one."

  A true criminal, but a puny, cowardly one, and just in case Lester decided to take a more proactive role than his assigned one as lookout, the chosen target had to be a complete and utter scumbag as well. Just in case - it was a dangerous mission.

  "They don't even have to have a prison record. I mean, you yourself are proof that's not a defining factor in moral character. I've got a ton of 'quality of life' crimes in here. I've got a guy on this very block who gets in his car at six-thirty every morning and turns his radio on full blast - it wakes the children, it's just criminal. We've tried calling nine one one, stealing his radio, his car, he just pays the fines, replaces them, so trust me there's no other way. Not trying to push you in any direction, but you'd be doing us a real service. Otherwise I won't be able to fit him in till next Thursday."

  There he was. Ryan Waters. Even among all those pictures of all those little weaselly bastards, this guy stood out like the refugee of another, elfin species. Ryan Waters. He looked like a jockey's runt son.

  "Ryan Waters? OK. All right. I mean, I guess he's a good starter project, it being your first time going solo. He's not really much for sport, though, is he? The man can't weigh more than a buck twenty-five Thanksgiving night. He is a real lowlife, if that's what you're going by. Ryan Waters, then. Well, there's going to be a bunch of old ladies who're going to have to find a new way to get their groceries home from the Pathmark." That was because Ryan Waters would no longer be waiting for them in his car, volunteering to carry their bags up to their apartments and taking anything he could shove in his coat on his way out again. The less alert ones would no longer have him to thank for his repeated visits. The more alert ones, the ones who went to the police only to recant their accusations later, would no longer have to worry that Ryan Waters knew where they lived.

  Outside, more banging, more uncharacteristic childish yelps. That was the first time it struck Snowden: For a building filled with children, he almost never heard them. It was like a school perpetually in class.

  "So you saw her already, didn't you?" Lester asked the question like his teeth couldn't hold his tongue back anymore. "You saw her on the way in."

  "Who?"

  "Oh come now, no secrets here. You must have at least heard her thumping around out there. Let's call her." Lester picked up his phone, hit the line for Nina, and asked her to send in "Horizon's newest employee." There was a pause, orchestrated by Lester sitting there, smiling, hands entwined over the top of his folded legs. "To be honest, we took her primarily to keep a closer eye — she seems to make a habit of staring too long at things best ignored - but she's already proven herself to be a hard worker. You have good taste in women, Snowden. I can admit that."

  When he heard the knock on the door, Lester rose to let her in, made introductions with the aside that they were not needed, then left the two of them. Snowden was the one who jumped up and shut the door, quietly locking it. Piper Goines. She seemed to Snowden so out of place standing there, an image clipped from one reality by dull scissors and pasted into another with too much glue. An image anxiety attacks were made of, specifically the one Snowden was having at the sight of her. Snowden didn't know the specifics of how she'd arrived at Horizon, but he was pretty confident he could guess the general reason. Piper had poked her nose into this world so deep that now she was in it, and that type of behavior is exactly why Snowden knew she shouldn't be there. So don't be. Don't be happy either. Don't offer answers to questions I specifically didn't ask.

  "We're going to have our first issue up by next week, can you believe that? I'm teaching all the kids how to write articles, they're coming up with the story ideas, it'll be great. I'm talking a three-thousand-copy print run, that goon Horus is putting thirty-five-cent news boxes all over Harlem as we speak!"

  "Piper, you shouldn't be here," Snowden begged.

  "Are you kidding? This company's amazing! It's going to be called Harlem Outcry, you like that? It was my idea. This is nothing, this is just a favor I'm doing in exchange for things to come. You wouldn't believe the offer they made me." Piper winked at him like maybe he did know.

  "This is going to end badly," Snowden thought aloud.

  "No, don't be pessimistic. In a couple of weeks I'll have these little runts writing great."

  Lester refused to talk to Snowden about Piper. They passed the Channel 9 News crew on 116th doing an editorial on the police shooting of Trevor Barber, but aside from shutting up until out of earshot, Lester was undistracted. Snowden was saying things, disparaging things, about Piper Goines, the obvious hazards of her inquisitive nature, her lack of moral character, her unsuitability to be left alone with children, slandering her as viciously as he dared without making her a potential hunting accident. Most of it was lies and Lester didn't pretend to take them as anything but, yet Snowden kept talking till they were almost at the building and it was time to kill someone.

  Wrapped in trash bags and duct tape, Snowden had brought something big to hit Ryan Waters in the head with. It was heavy too, after a couple of blocks walking, Snowden was getting tired in both arms. The weapon of the evening was that lid that sits on the back of the toilet. The constructors of the building they were about to go up in had u
sed the same manufacturer for the sink basins, toilets, and bathtubs. All three were made from the exact same East Rutherford, New Jersey, porcelain, so that even the closest forensic study could confuse a blow to the head from this toilet lid with a simple slip in the shower.

  Lester was unimpressed.

  "The blood splatter marks would be different," Snowden confessed. "But I thought I'd just leave the shower on to get rid of them."

  "No, bad idea. It's not that it's not a good plan. It's just. . . he's a puny thing, isn't he? Do you really think he deserves the A material? It's freezing, and it rained till two last night. That fire escape up there is going to be covered in ice; that's all the alibi you need. Just go up and throw his little ass out the window and then we'll go get lunch."

  Snowden was not impressed, either, pulling his potty lid close to him like Lester might try to take it away.

  At Waters's door the lock stubbornly resisted several turns before finally admitting that Snowden's key was the right one, and even still it barely opened for him. It was getting easier. It was getting mundane, Snowden heard the faint music inside and didn't once worry that Waters would hear the door opening. If black people just lowered their radios they really would be a lot safer. Lester motioned to his eyes to emphasize that he would use them, then went over to where Wendell was balled near the stairs, his cell phone out and dialing before Snowden could even close the door quietly behind him.

  The apartment was hot, damp, smelled like sweaty socks were preheating in the oven. The place was obviously a hermit's, just like all the other hermitages Snowden had bagged up in the months before. The way people lived, the way people really lived when they were alone, when they didn't think anyone would ever be coming by and shame had no hold on them, was like this. The smell, the curtains pulled to hide from satellites and God, the dishes kept in a dirty sink jam and cleaned one at a time as need arose, the total absence of a bare surface of any kind. We resent rats for their similarities to humans, not their differences.

  The clothes lining the narrow hallway made it easier for Snowden to walk down it without being heard, but not much. The toilet top wanted badly to swing out and bang into the wall, and Snowden's left hand threatened to drop the thing altogether if it didn't start cooperating. Snowden's right hand held the gun and it was pretty comfortable with that. A string of slow steps to avoid creaking on the hardwood floors. Snowden was doing well until about eight feet in when his foot went down and made a sound like a giant eating wooden cereal without milk, echoing down the hall to the room of the man he was supposed to be surprising. The only thing Snowden could think was, Oh poop.

  It couldn't have been as loud as he'd heard it, that was silly, no mere footstep could thunder like that. I'm not Paul Bunyan, I'm Cedric Snowden, the second (the first one didn't turn out quite right). Snowden calmed himself and he felt, in a way not familiar with rational thought, that if he could focus hard enough he could calm his entire surroundings as well. As he concentrated, it seemed to be working. No shadows started moving toward him, no new sounds, creaks responded, just that sound of the radio and the constant call of sirens outside. I have nothing to fear, Snowden reminded himself. Then, without warning, the music stopped and a man Snowden immediately recognized as Ryan Waters (smaller in person) came screaming down the hall, an ax held above him.

  Irving Howe's hairpiece served as a pretty good shield, composed as it was of good old-fashion porcelain almost an inch thick. It was heavy and hard to lift up to meet the repeated blows, but Snowden found just enough strength in his arm to do it. Snowden's lid was at almost no risk of even chipping, because even though Waters's weapon was a blur as it rained down, up close Snowden could see that it was not actually a metal ax head at the end of the wooden stick but instead the question mark crook of a cane. Emboldened by the revelation, Snowden pushed Waters back with each pounding, yelling several fragments such as, "I mean you no - ," "I come in - ," "I'm trying to - ," "Oh for the love of God - ," all of which went unnoticed as Ryan Waters kept screaming, "Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" at the top of his lungs.

  A block stronger than a blow and Ryan Waters went down the short distance to his feet. It was a hard fall, a leg caught completely off guard shot out from beneath him and Waters went straight down on his tailbone. That crunching sound, it wasn't just a product of loose floorboards. Snowden almost leaned his toilet top against the wall and offered a hand, but instead offered, "Ryan Waters, I'm here to help you." Maybe Ryan didn't want help, at least from Cedric Snowden.

  Maybe the look on Waters's face was just because Snowden pushed his own face to mere inches away and was talking in the lightest audible whisper to keep Lester from overhearing. Maybe it was simply the fact that this intruder knew his name that sent Ryan Waters running down the hall, but it didn't matter because, like that, Waters had scrambled away and was gone.

  Snowden stood, gun in one hand, oversized potty protection in the other, stunned at the spurning of his offer. It took a good three seconds of Waters not coming charging back for Snowden to remember himself and chase after him.

  It was the decor of the bedroom that caught Snowden off guard. It was a mess, more so than the rest of the apartment, but it wasn't the clothes that lined the floor that were so startling, it was the clothes affixed to nearly every inch of the walls. The man had taken women's panties and nailed them up as trophies. Huge panties, most of them, Snowden saw the big thick and dull fabrics and was imagining the big thick and dull women who'd been in them when Waters popped up from behind and slammed his cane full force into the back of Snowden's skull.

  The reason Snowden didn't pass out was pure physics, and the luck that he'd looked up to see the drawers hanging saggy from the ceiling so that the cane hit where his head was the hardest. Snowden's legs did buckle, a hand did reach out to find this world again, but when Snowden righted himself, even Ryan Waters seemed a bit impressed as Snowden managed to lift the gun and point it at him.

  They went into the bathroom because Snowden found the bedroom disgusting and he was the one with the gun in his hand. It was a good choice - it was the least cluttered room in the apartment and the slight smell of urine actually canceled out some of the more aggressive odors of the place. Snowden told Waters to sit down, nodded the gun barrel at the lip of the tub, and Waters did it. Now we're getting somewhere.

  "Look, I am sorry for this little unannounced entry, but you have got to believe me, it could be worse. I've been hired to kill you. If you listen to me, I can help you save your life." Snowden used Lester's gun as part of his hand gestures and Ryan Waters stared at it like it was a ventriloquist's dummy. Sweat dripped down Snowden's face in a long stream, he could feel it. Only when he followed Ryan Waters's growing eyes to the floor did Snowden see that it was blood instead.

  "Hey man," Snowden touched his scalp with his gun hand; his hair was like a wet sponge. "You almost freaking killed me."

  "What are you bitching about? You're the one that just broke in my place, ain't you?" Waters asked. "Oh man, that's disgusting!" The last thing Snowden wanted to see, as his vision began to blur, was the face of revulsion on this man, curator of the bloomer museum. "Goddamn, brother," Waters cringed. "You're bleeding all over my floor. Why don't you put some toilet paper on that shit or something?"

  Snowden the Snowman felt as pale and cold as his nom de guerre. Looking down at the blood referencing Pollock on his shoes, Snowden felt pathetic too, powerless to stop the flow, one hand refusing to drop the gun that kept his captive at bay, the other refusing to drop its heavy shield in case the first hand failed its objective.

  "You want me to get a tissue for you?" Waters asked, grimacing.

  "I came here to help you. There's someone out there who wants to kill you. You have to get out of town."

  "Sure there is. I really appreciate you coming out here and sharing that with me. Could've just looked me up in the phone book, I'm listed, but you know, that's your thing, I can dig that. Come on, let me get that tissue fo
r you. Maybe you should put that shirt in cold water so it don't stain."

  It was a really nice shirt. A nod, more defeated than permissive, and Ryan Waters was wrapping toilet tissue around his fist, nearly two inches worth when he was done, which in no way buffered the blow when instead of wiping off the blood from the floor the little weasel chose to punch Snowden as hard as he could in his groin.

  Males spent lifetimes watching other men simulate taking direct, deliberate, forceful blows to the testicles. Sitcoms, women's self-defense shows, children's movies, it didn't matter how inane or stupid the presentation, men would cringe every time they saw it because they knew somewhere out there this most painful, incapacitating of attacks was waiting for them. It turned out that Cedric Snowden's was biding its time in the bathroom of Apartment 24 of 433 West 128th Street, sitting patiently on the toilet like his balls were Godot.

  There was the dropping of the toilet bowl lid onto the top of his own foot, but really, what were a few skinny little bones at a time like this one? There was the screaming, but that was later, that didn't even start till after Snowden'd collapsed to the floor, whispered dryly out of a wide-open mouth until his lungs regained their air and gave voice to him. Ryan Waters had already pushed past and closed the bathroom door by then, Snowden could hear the man placing furniture on the other side to keep it from opening again. By the time Snowden reasserted his status as biped, he could hear the desperate jiggles of Waters down the hall trying to open that tricky front door lock and abandon him.

  The wood of the door was old, not very thick at all. Snowden flung open the cabinet under the sink in search of a monkey wrench to hammer through it, found only stacks of brown plastic pill bottles, noticed even in his frenzy that they were all nearly full, all prescribed to different women's names. I should have hit him, Snowden thought, not just to assert dominance but because this bastard deserves a pop in the mouth. Bottles spilled to the floor followed by a sweeping hand, but there was nothing useful behind them. Desperation growing, Snowden yanked open the mirrored medicine cabinet above, was taken completely off guard by the dozens of disembodied human teeth inside grinning back at him, plastic grimaces bobbing and swaying in excitement.