A Brief History of Seven Killings (70 page)

—He has a movie showing, named
Purple Rain
.

—Purple Haze?

—Rain. Prince, not Jimi. I should probably take it off. He gets a little explicit.

—Sweetie, I’m the only white man in five boroughs who actually owns Blowfly records. This Prince doesn’t scare me. Sorry for calling you sweetie. I understand women aren’t into being spoken to that way anymore.

I wanted to tell him that I didn’t mind and that it’s still the first time anybody—certainly any man—has called me anything nice in a while. But I looked out the window at the skyline turning on its lights.

—Who’s the girl on the cover?

—Apollonia. She’s supposed to be his girlfriend in real life.

—So he’s not gay then.

—You must be hungry. You didn’t eat any of the pizza at your house.

—I am kinda. What you got?

—Nachos and ramen.

—Good Lord, not together?

—Prefer week-old Chicken McNuggets?

—Milady doth have a point.

I put the kettle on for the noodles, which means time just sitting and listening to the rest of the album. By the time the kettle is whistling the album is almost over, and I’m thinking of flipping it back to side one because I know I won’t be able to sit through the silence and neither will he.

—So where’re you from exactly?

—What?

—Where are you . . . Can you turn that off? It’s not like Elvis is leaving the building. Where’re you from?

—Eat your noodles. Kingston.

—You already said that.

—A place named Havendale.

—Is that in the city?

—Suburbs.

—Like the Midwest?

—Like Queens.

—Ghastly. Why did you leave?

—It was time to go.

—Just like that? Was it Michael Manley and all that communist hoo-hah that was going on a couple years ago?

—I see you’re very informed about the Cold War.

—Sweetie, I grew up in the fifties.

—I was being sarcastic.

—I know.

—Anyway, why anything drive me out? Maybe I just wanted to leave. You ever been around family and still feel like you’ve overstayed your welcome?

—Holy fucking Christ, tell me about it. Worse when it’s your own goddamn house that you goddamn paid for.

—You’re still going to have to go back eventually.

—Oh you think so, do you? What about you?

—Don’t have anything to go back to.

—Really? No family? No sweetheart?

—You really are a child of the fifties. In Jamaica, a sweetheart is the woman you’re cheating on your wife with.

—Charming. Speaking of charming, I gotta use your loo.

—Back down the hallway where you came in, second to last door on your right.

—Gotcha.

It would be funny to turn on the TV right now and with Cronkite leading off about the Colthirst big daddy being kidnapped and held for ransom. The wife/daughter-in-law bawling on camera until she realizes that her mascara is running down her cheeks and shouting cut! And the son looking all stoic because he either doesn’t want to talk or his wife refuses to shut up.
We thought the place was reputable, but you never know. She seemed so trustworthy—her name was Dorcas, for God’s sake. Only God knows how much she will ask for in the ransom note
. I wonder if she will dress up right before the news cameras show up. What’s my photo going to look like on TV, though I’m sure the agency doesn’t have a photo of me. At least I can’t remember. But let’s say they have a picture of me, which in just a slight change of context will look like a mug shot. I’ll bet from the one day I left the apartment and forgot to get my hair right. The couple will probably hold hands while she begs the kidnapper, meaning me, to have some humanity since her father is not well, not well at all, and—

—What’s this?

I didn’t hear him come out of the bathroom. No flush, no door squeak, no nothing. Is so my thoughts run away with me that I didn’t even notice him until he’s right in front of me.

—I said, what’s this? Who are you anyway?

He waves it in front of me. I already tell myself that it’s not like I was expecting the day to end with people in my house. I mean, this is the house of a woman who never expects company. But goddamn it, I should have checked the bathroom first, if for nothing else to make sure fresh towel was over the sink. And now he’s in front of me like he name police, waving the book that is usually safe under my pillow.

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found

By Doug Richmond

Cho bombocloth.

Tristan Phillips

B
ullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
You chatting so much shit your tongue probably brown. Oh no? Okay, you know what, let’s play it your way. What else you have to ask me. Balaclava? You done ask me that already. Copper? Check your notes, fool. Papa-Lo and Shotta Sherrif, I track the last one from the Eight Lanes right up to Brooklyn, so check your notes.

Oh? Really?

That’s not what I think. You want to know what I think? You don’t have any notes. Everything you have scribbled down there is doodle and bullshit. For all I know you been writing Mary Have a Little Lamb in Spanish all this time. No? So make me see it. Go on. Yeah right, as you Americans say. Exactly what me did think. White boy, just cut the shit already. Better yet, why you don’t stay quiet and I will tell you why you is here? Look at you, man. I mean, it’s 1985, you can’t get a decent haircut, with this hippie fuckery. Jeans shirt like cowboy, disco jeans pants and don’t tell me, cowboy-no, bike boots. Shit. Even man in prison see at least two episode of
Miami Vice
. You get any punaani looking like that? Oh, you know what punaani mean? Really. This is your style or you get stuck in a year and everybody leave you there?

I mean, you come in here telling me that you doing a story about the peace process. For one, that was seven years ago and all now you can’t give me a good reason why it’s still interesting. You think me stupid? Brethren, there is a thing called context and all now you can’t give me one. Don’t insult me ’cause I sometimes chat bad. You sure you know what context mean? You know what we was actually doing or you think all we do was put on one concert with the Singer? By the way, everything you ask so far is about the end of the peace process, never the beginning and never even during. Come
on, white boy, for a boy who claim to not see the island since 1978, every single thing you bring up so far about happen in 1979 and ’80. You ask about Papa-Lo, but only his death. You ask about Copper, but only his death. You never ask about Lucy and even after I bring her up, you just move on like she don’t mean nothing.

Oh. You just want to be thorough. Oh. Well you is a journalist, after all.

Uh-huh.

Right, my youth.

You want to know more about when me join Ranking Dons in 1980.

Pierce.

Pierce.

Alex.

Me never say I join the Ranking Dons in 1980, I just said I joined the Ranking Dons. Or maybe you want to know about Josey Wales? He coming to New York, you know. Word in Rikers is that he landing today. Who knows what he coming for. Or who.

Oh.

You quiet now. Look at you. In fact, you quiet every single time I mention Josey Wales. No. Brethren, only minutes ago when I was talking about how Wales fuck up the peace council you immediately change the subject to how me end up in prison when you clearly already know. You don’t ask a single thing about me that you couldn’t find out in any interview me do for the council, even the one with the New York station me talk about. But is true. Josey Wales coming to New York today. And he definitely not coming to see me.

Look at you. Sitting there like trying to act like you not ’fraid. I give you five minutes to wrap up this interview because you have some pressing matter then run home to your Bed-Stuy apartment and hide under the sink. Oh yeah, Alex Pierce, how long you think it take me to find out what I need to know about you? Thinking that because you live on Bedford and Clifton that you is hardcore. Two-thirty-eight Clifton Place, right? First-floor apartment, no, wait, second-floor—I forget that you Americans don’t use ground floor. Haha. Everybody on your street black and dressed like they audition
ing for
Thriller
and you one looking like you playing for the Eagles. You is something, Alex Pierce, make me guess, is me comparing you to the Eagles that piss you off. But me wrong ’bout you. You not leaving in five minutes. You not leaving until you get what you come for. Josey Wales coming to New York just make things difficult but you still here for something.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Huh?

Huh?

Go on.

Just like that? Just sitting there like that?

You know what? Me quiet so talk.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

Shit, Alex Pierce.

Shit.

Hahahahahaha.

Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh. But it kinda funny still. Wake up in your bed and find man sitting beside you. You sure you and him wasn’t fucking and him wake first? Calm down, my youth, everybody can see that you not a battyman.

You ever kill a man before? Yes, Alex Pierce, that is what I want to know. You can shut up with the fuck and motherfucker, or I’ll call the guard. Answer the question.

Kill anybody since? Haha, I know, just ah run joke with you. What a piece of business is killing a man, eh? Hell of a thing. Everything that him set out to do from sunrise to sunset you just put a stop to it, just like that. It don’t matter if it was a good man or bad man, you look at a dead man and wonder if he, if anybody, start a day thinking this going be the last. Weird, eh? You wake up, eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, you work, party, you fuck and you wake up and do it all again. But this one night, this one man not going see a tomorrow ever again. He not going get up, bathe, shit, cross the
road, take this bus, play with him children, nothing. And is you do it. You take it from him. I hear you, but that was all there was to it, him was about to take life from you and you just do what called for, or you wouldn’t be in front of me right now. What him look like dead? You touch him? Just leave it so? So how you know him was dead?

My youth, you leave the hotel room and nothing happen after that? Interesting. Is not like you book the room under false name. So no news report, no investigation, no police call you, nothing, almost like you dream up the whole thing. Calm down, white boy, me never say you dream it, but somebody clean up after you, somebody clean up good. And . . . hold on, you say blue uniform? Like a blue uniform?

And bald head?

Him kinda red? I mean, light skin, mixed looking?

Bombocloth.

So you telling me that you is the man that kill Tony Pavarotti?

Bombocloth, my youth. Bombocloth.

No, me never know him, but who in the ghetto didn’t hear ’bout Tony Pavarotti? That man was Josey Wales’ top-ranking enforcer. Hear that the man cold as ice, some people say him mute ’cause nobody ever hear him say anything ever. You ever hear ’bout the place named School for the Americas? You have to be outside of America to ever hear ’bout it. All I know is that Pavarotti is the only boy that for a fact come out of that there place. And the only boy who did know what to do with a gun. Better sniper than police or soldier. And you saying that some scrawny hippie-boy kill Jamaica’s number one killing machine? Oh no, brethren, me totally mean to laugh. No, maybe you right, maybe. I mean, you certainly very upset about it, that’s for sure. I mean, you sure it was him? Oh wait, you wouldn’t know. You just know what him look like. Sorry, brethren, but me have to absorb this some more. Is like me looking at the man who kill Harry Callahan. You remember when this was?

February 1979. So now it come out. You was in Jamaica up to February 1979. You tell me say you was uncovering some shit about Green Bay, too, right? Although that don’t mean nothing, even Jamaican newspaper expose
the truth behind that long time. But if Tony Pavarotti was coming after you, then the order must did come from Copenhagen City. And since that not Papa-Lo style, the only person who could have send him was Josey Wales. Damn, my youth, is what you do to set off Josey Wales so he would send man to kill you?

You don’t know.

Maybe you don’t realize that you know. What kind of journalist don’t even know him own facts? You must did find out something about Josey Wales that nobody else know. Then again that’s not it at all. Josey find out that you have something on him that you didn’t even realize that you know. Yes, is six years ago but it clearly haunting you so you must remember something. It must be in your notes or something. Is funny though because Josey not really ’fraid of nothing it seems. He might be what you people call a psychopath. Come, man, think. What out there that only you and him know?

You know a drug connection? A mob link? You do a story about Colombia lately? No, wait, it would be back then. Nineteen seventy-nine nothing really start up yet, certainly nothing that you would know. Green Bay, no. You wasn’t covering politics, you was doing stuff on the peace treaty but what draw you into that story? You was following the Singer? Oh. The Singer. Why?

Oh.

Brethren.

You just say it to me, Pierce. You just lay out the whole plan and you still don’t see it. We have more in common than you know. Think ’bout it. Right now everybody know that whoever shoot the Singer was aiming for the heart but get the chest and only because he exhale instead of inhale, right? I mean, it even in the book on him. But back in 1978 who would know that instead of the Singer, the gunman and, from the sound of this, you? So him realise him tell you something that he not supposed to know, after all, not even the hospital could say where a killer mean to shoot, only where it hit. I mean, I knew that Josey fire the shot, but I didn’t know that till ’79. And even then, nobody could have know intention other than who get shot and who try to kill. He didn’t look at you a way? He did just cut the interview
short right after that? He must. Damn, my youth, you living a movie. The thing is, even though we all know about Green Bay, if I hear you correct, then you find out the truth long before everybody else. What you name, Sherlock? So either he try to kill you because you find out that he try to kill the Singer himself, or he try to kill you because you find out the truth about Green Bay. Although him trying to kill his own people don’t make no sense. Now me confused.