Free Black Hornet by James Sallis Page B

out of the house, all of them trained fighters and all of them armed, the two are gone.
    Gone with, according to word on the street, somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand dollars.
    “That’s it.” Doo-Wop said.
    I put a twenty on the bar, ordered another round. The twenty vanished. Dipping his head a couple of degrees, Doo-Wop acknowledged payment in full. He sampled the new pouring. Approved it.
    I looked at Walsh.
    He shrugged.
    “Could be. There’s definitely been a buzz, something going on. No report, but then there probably wouldn’t be. And if someone did report it, that’s all we’d get.”
    “This couldn’t have anything to do with the guy we’re looking for.”
    “Anything direct, you mean.”
    “Right.”
    “Don’t see how.”
    “Hang tight. I’ll be back.”
    I asked after the phone and found it in the men’s room clinging to a narrow wall between urinal and sink. Dropped in my nickel and dialed Frankie DeNoux.
    I’m sure I only imagined the sound of teeth sinking into chicken at the other end. And the sound of a card-board tray being set down, grease oozing slowly out onto files, correspondence, briefs.
    “Griffin,” I said. “I need some help.”
    “You got it.”
    An elderly man came out of the stall, washed his hands at the sink and, turning to get a paper towel from the stack, splattered soapy water on my shoes. I flattened myself against the wall so he could get out.
    “Something on the street. Started last Friday. Saturday.”
    “People in purple involved?”
    “Seems so.”
    “And some others in black shirts and berets.”
    “Hadn’t heard that part.”
    Frankie told me what he knew, then listened to what I’d been able to figure out from Doo-Wop’s story.
    “So who’s wearing the funny hats?” I asked.
    “Who always wears them? The elect, the preterite. Those who know what’s best for all of us—even when the rest of us don’t.”
    “Why aren’t the police on this?”
    “You’re kiddin’ me—right, Lew?”
    Another man came into the restroom, looked around briefly, and left.
    “There’s no way the police are gonna get notified. Who’s gonna trust them, something like this? Better listen to Malcolm, brother. Negroes have to solve their own problems. We can’t expect white society to.”
    “Man, you run errands for one of the worst parts of white society. We both do.”
    “Yeah. Well, chicken’s cheap, but it ain’t that cheap.”
    “You’re telling me the Yoruba theft’s internal.”
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “Blacks ripping off other blacks.’
    “Way I see it, sure.”
    “A power play of some kind? Something territorial?”
    “Could be. It’s an old song, Lew. But I’ll ask around.”
    “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
    When I got back to the bar, Walsh had bought Doo-Wop a drink and was talking to him. Years later, in another bar, I heard Doo-Wop telling someone else who’d bought him a drink about the time he’d been a cop.

Chapter Fourteen
    W ITH THE WORK I DID, HOW I LIVED , there’s no way I was going to keep regular hours. I didn’t keep hours at all. They just loomed around me and passed by like Carnival floats. But my course through days and nights had zigzagged a lot worse than usual that past week or so, and maybe it was starting to wear me down.
    Walsh and I walked out of the bar into streets suspended timelessly somewhere between dark and light. Everything was either blinding white or dead black, edges leached away by gray—like in old movies. For a moment I didn’t know if it was morning or evening. And for another terrifying moment I had no idea where I was.
    Then Walsh’s hand fell on my shoulder and it all began settling back in place.
    “I’ve got to get some sleep,” I said.
    “Know what you mean.”
    We walked back to his car, in one of those narrow downtown lots that look like they’ll hold maybe eight cars, but the attendants have twenty of them lined up in there.
    “Talk to you later,” I said.
    “The hell you