Free Underbelly by Gary Phillips Page B

pleasant voice hum and sing “Red River Valley.” He got to the inside stairwell door and creaked it open. Asher would hear it but probably wouldn’t pursue him in the stairwell, as this meant disturbing his practice session. Magrady came out on the side of the building in a narrow passagewaycrowed with trash and smelling ripe. He bought some tepid coffee from the Shell gas station quick mart and didn’t give in to the lust to have a muffin. He walked over to the Urban Advocacy offices but Bonilla was in the field and the intern that had helped him, Fjeldstrom, wasn’t around either. He was able to check for his mail and was surprised to find a letter for him.
    â€œShe must have strong ju-ju,” he mumbled, meaning Angie Baine talking about her family had conjured up his as well. Magrady went back to the waiting area in front and sat heavily in one of the plastic chairs. Snakes writhing in his throat, he stared at the envelope. The letter was from his ex-wife, Claudelia. She’d long ago remarried and was now living in Tulsa, being an Oklahoma girl originally. He tapped it against his fingertips. He just knew this couldn’t be good news.
    He debated reading the message now or later. A woman who’d been there before him was now talking to one of the organizers about her unfair eviction. Magrady folded the letter and tucked it in his back pocket. One goddamn problem at a time, he reasoned. He went to the bus stop on Wilshire and after two other buses came and went, got the Line 10 of the blue bus, Big Blue it was nicknamed, the one he needed to take him far enough. This one took a freeway route and its riders tended to be dressed in suits and expensive shoes—lawyers doing their part at being eco friendly.
    The Westwood Farmers Market was a once-a-week fresh food affair held in the fourteen-acre garden on the expansive Veterans Affairs facility off of Wilshire near the 405 Freeway. The garden also included rows of rose bushes, and gave recuperating vets an opportunity to do some head healing through the symbolic and practical act of growing fruits and vegetables. Magrady wasn’t much on sod busting, but he appreciated what this program did for the vets.
    He nodded at a twenty-some-year-old man in cargo shorts with one of those space age curved metal legs attached below his real knee. He watched the Iraqi vet offload some red potatoes from a van and continued walking about, searching for Floyd Chambers. He bought some strawberries from a vendor because weren’t they a natural way to keep your pencil sharp? Seemed hisdad used to say that. Stacked under the table’s stall were several crates etched Shishido Farm in the soft wood.
    Munching on his snack, he rounded another stall where a heavyset woman was using a screwdriver to undo the plastic straps sealing a cardboard box. He also spotted Chambers. He had on a floppy hat and was wheeling about, having just talked with a young woman holding a clipboard. Magrady was about to call to him but something clicked like those times in the war threading through jungle overgrowth. Damn if his Spidey Sense hadn’t kicked in. Must be the way Floyd was looking around trying to seem casual but not. He followed his brief head turns to Boo Boo, he of the sunset eyes. His Yogi fortunately didn’t seem to be about.
    The thug was hefting a couple of husks of corn but he too was on alert. What had they intended to do to Angie, Magrady roiled moodily. Channeling his anger, he moved toward Boo Boo, having picked up the screwdriver from the vendor’s table.
    Magrady was behind and to the right of the Boo before he noticed him. He’d been distracted trying to mack on a smooth-skinned honey who had the good sense to not give him those digits. “How you doin’, fuckhead?” he said while simultaneously jabbing the screwdriver into the hoodlum’s lower side. He wasn’t looking to puncture a kidney, just get a