Free Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors by Eleanor Taylor Bland

Wondered how things were going with her down at the gallery. Couldn’t bring myself to call. Thought about that, how I hadn’t talked to her since I moved out. Little Beirut wasn’t just my cover now. It was my home. It was my purgatory.
    â€œSo, you’re not gonna use this stuff about Carver.” Ant looked at the file folders on the table where I had sorted the background material from the things we would definitely include.
    â€œYou mean when he—”
    â€œWhen he was loud-talking that Korean in the store—”
    â€œAfter taking the cash, when he should have been getting the fuck out of there.”
    â€œRight. Gave the clown time to go for his gat, pop his ass,” Ant said. “Says a lot about this place, yo. The hard lessons we all have to learn. How fast life can move away from you. How you have to think fast to keep up.”
    I considered it all, the take on life from this young urban philosopher.“Yeah, well, we’ll see. But, some of the best color never makes it into a story.”
    He weighed it for a minute. “Like with the hos?”
    â€œYou mean, the hooker series?”
    He shrugged. “You know what I mean. Anything you didn’t stick in that one?” He cut a wicked smile.
    â€œSome stuff, yeah.” I thought about my talk with Jennings and how there are always consequences with each story. People whose lives are changed and sometimes not for the better.
    â€œSome stuff with this Peaches, I bet. I checked her picture, yo. She’s banging, Dog. So, look, you can tell me, since we’re partners and shit. She put it on you?”
    I just let that hang there for a suspenseful moment. Thought about how Dakota had asked the same thing. In so many words. “First thing you have to learn if you’re going to keep good sources,” I said, “is that you’ve got to keep some shit tight. Confidential.”
    â€œCool.” He beamed. “So, I won’t tell.”
    I thought about it and started talking. It was more like I had to than wanted to. It was like my confessional. I told him what Peaches had told me. There was somebody out there running their whole game. Somebody over the pimps, calling the shots, setting the rates, turning in the competition to the cops. He was even claiming freebies with some of the girls. Power trip. She had heard he was “a real monster motherfucker.”
    I looked Ant dead in the eye. “That’s what they called him. ‘MoMo.’ That part never made it into the series because I couldn’t get confirmation. No second source. Not long after the series ran, they found Peaches in a South Side alley. She was banged up pretty bad. I paid the hospital bill, got her out of town, set her up. But she’ll never look like that picture you saw in the paper. Never again.” I looked down at the table. “She said it was a bad trick. Everybody knew better. I sure did. It was MoMo, paying her back for talking to me.” I looked back up at him again. “You were right on the money, Ant. What I do makes a difference. All the difference in the world.”
    â€œNo telling where his no-account mother is.” Gladys Sampson was still hanging in there with us. “You’d think a boy like that, out at two in the morning like that, I mean somebody should care about what’s happened. Shame. Real shame.”
    â€œYep, real shame, all right,” Carver chimed in. “Boy shouldn’t been running his mouth so damn much.”
    I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Running his mouth about what?”
    He turned, slowly, to face me. “You ain’t been in The Root long, Dog, but you been here long enough.”
    I took another hit. “For what?”
    â€œTo know the one thing you need to know.”
    â€œAnd that is . . . ?”
    He turned away from me, gazed down at Ant again. “That there’s some