Dominion (101 page)

Clarence had been detained only an hour in the hospital emergency room. His injury was superficial. It had drawn a lot of blood and still hurt, but they’d patched him up and let him go. He was glad Geneva was at her mom’s for the day and didn’t need to know till later what had happened. He’d dropped by the house to pick up a few things. Now he sat in his car three houses down and across the street from Shadow’s, waiting and watching.

He saw Shadow arrive at his crib with two homies. Clarence studied Shadow. His hair was cornrowed to the back, with some nuclear waste thrown in, and over it a blue bandanna. He wore gray work gloves that sent a message, “Don’t mess with me. I mean business.” Shadow slapped hands with his homeboys, and then they disappeared around the corner, leaving alone the new leader of the Rollin’ 60s.

Shadow sauntered up to his porch, looking at a magazine that had come in the mail, while Clarence got out of his car and approached him briskly from behind. The young man heard Clarence’s footfalls on the stairs. He spun around, and his eyes dared Clarence to make the next move.

“Hey, Shadow,” Clarence said. “Don’t reach for your heat or you’re history, you hear me?” Clarence lifted his right hand from his suit pocket, showing Shadow his Glock 17. He tilted the gun up slightly, the red light focusing on Shadow’s chest, causing him to freeze. Clarence walked behind Shadow and yanked a Sig Sauer 9 mm out of the gangster’s waistband.

“Chill out man,” Shadow said, scoping out the hood, hoping some 60 would see what was comin’ down.

“You’re going to take a ride with me.” Clarence forced Shadow toward the Bonneville. When they reached the car, Clarence searched him, removing a knife from inside his right sock. He shoved him into the passenger seat.

Clarence pulled out into the street, heading to MLK, where he turned south toward 1-84. “You killed my friend,” Clarence said, “the cop who came to see you at the crack house. Yeah, that’s right, I know it was you. He just wanted to talk to you, and you killed him. And I think you killed my sister.”

“No man, didn’t kill her. I swear it.”

“Dani Rawls. September 2. Forty rounds. My five-year-old niece too. Comin’ back to you now?”

“Heard about it. Didn’t do it. No reason to kill your sister, man.”

“But you did pay off Gracie Miller to lie about me, didn’t you?”

“No way, man. Wasn’t me.”

“Well, we’re gonna find out. I’ve got a friend who has a nice little cabin twenty miles outside the city,” Clarence said. “I know where he keeps the key.”

The farther Clarence got outside the city, the more disoriented Shadow became. This wasn’t his turf. After a forty minute drive, silent and tense, Clarence turned down a long winding dirt road, ten miles past Gresham on the way to Mount Hood.

They drove up to an isolated cabin, buried in thick Douglas firs. Clarence got out of the car and took a box from the trunk. Had this been Shadow’s turf, he might have ducked and run, but he didn’t know where to go and he had no allies here. Clarence opened the passenger door and herded Shadow inside with the Glock.

“Sit down.” Clarence pointed to a sturdy old chair at a table, then took a tow-rope out of the box and tied Shadow’s waist to the chair. “Stretch your arms out on the table.”

“Whatchu doin’ man? Whatchu doin’ to me?”

“Too many black folks has forgotten,” Zeke said to Dani, “our struggle was never to get independence from God. It weren’t a struggle to be out from under lordship. It was a struggle to be under the
right
lordship. Freedom isn’t being out from under authority. Freedom is being under the right authority, God’s.”

Dani nodded, watching the images forming in the portal. A plantation master was speaking to a group of slaves, one of them Zeke.

“When old Ned died last week,” the Sunday-suit-wearing master said, “there was some grumblin’ ’cause he weren’t buried in the ground. I say he was a nigger so it don’t rightly matter. I can’t afford to waste a perfectly good box every time a nigger dies. But to show you I’s a kind Christian man, I’s gonna give you materials to build your own coffins, but only on your own time. You can’t go stealin’ your time from me; that’s breakin’ God’s law. Hear me?”

“Yes, Massah Willy,” Zeke said. Dani then watched Zeke, bone tired from his all-day labors, using saw, hammer, and nails to build his own coffin under moonlight. After the job was done, Zeke wrote on the side of the coffin with a piece of coal.

“Not bad for an old slave that taught hisself to read and write from that old Bible I hid under my bed.” Zeke read the words aloud: “Psalm 16:11—In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”

Dani saw the master come up to Zeke’s coffin, squinting at it. “Who wrote those words? Wipe ’em off. I should whip you for writin’, and I would if I weren’t so full of lovin’ kindness.”

“As I wiped off each word,” Zeke said to Dani, “I recited it as a prayer to Elyon. See, the massahs could control our bodies, but they couldn’t control our minds. My body was enslaved, but my heart was free.”

Dani hugged him, then reached to his face and wiped his tears. “Ironic,” she said, “how that man who claimed to believe God’s Word couldn’t stand to see you write it on your coffin. What was going through his mind?”

“Don’t rightly know, but I expect slaves readin’ and writin’ reminded Massah Willy we was real men. See, they’d say we was just like cows or mules, but I never seen a cow readin’ or writin’. Me writin’ Scripture reminded him I was a spiritual being, God’s chile. Cows and mules don’t pray and sing and worship neither. Now, hearin’ too much Bible reminded Massah Willy he’d has to stand before God for everything he’d done. What brings comfort to those who suffer injustice brings terror to those who commit injustice. Buildin’ that coffin and writin’ those words was a labor of love. For me the promise of bein’ in God’s presence was joy. For him the promise was terror.”

“I guess we can’t know exactly what he was thinking, can we?” Dani asked.

“Often I looks through the portal and wonders what people was thinkin’ when they said and did things,” Zeke said. “Sometimes I knows I’ll be able to ask them. But I can’t ask questions of Massah Willy. He just ain’t here to ask.”

Clarence removed Shadow’s gloves and took another rope, tied it around his wrists, and pulled it across the table. Then he tied it to the table legs underneath on the opposite side so Shadow’s arms were stretched tight.

“Why you doin’ this?” Shadow’s voice cracked.

“Ever take a lie detector test?” Clarence asked.

“No. My lawyer say not to.”

“Smart man,” Clarence said. “I’ll have to get his name from you. Well, Shadow, today’s your chance to try out the lie detector. Got me a polygraph test right here. It’ll tell me when you lie. We’re going to use the three strikes and you’re out rule.” He held up the Glock 17 in his palm. “You lie three times, I put a bullet through your head.”

A look of horror shot through Shadow’s eyes. He’d heard this big dude’s rep, what he’d done to Georgie.

Clarence took his father’s blood pressure unit out of the box, wrapped it around Shadow’s right arm, and pumped it tight—too tight. Then he took out a length of clear surgical tubing he’d gotten off the shelf of a medical supply store less than two hours before. He tied it tight around Shadow’s chest. Finally, Clarence plugged into the wall outlet the electrical cord running from the power supply of Jonah’s induction coil. He positioned the thick metal nail-like end an inch from the crook of Shadow’s left arm. Shadow’s eyes got big as he looked at the imposing piece of metal.

“You lie and I’ll know it. Three lies and you’re dead. Got it? First question— what’s your name?”

“Shadow.”

Clarence moved his finger on the power supply, sitting on his lap where Shadow couldn’t see it. A bright arc jumped to Shadow’s arm, which involuntarily flexed upward, abruptly stopped by the tension of the rope. He screamed, eyes wide. Clarence switched the unit off.

“What’s happenin’, man?” Shadow shouted. “You tryin’ to fry me?”

“It’s just fifty thousand volts. That’s strike one. Shadow isn’t your real name.”

“Davey. Davey Williams. Everybody call me Shadow. That don’t count.”

“It counts. Strike one. Now, are you a Crip or a Blood?”

“I be Crip, man. Rollin’ 60s, do or die. Hate Bloods.”

“Well, you’re telling the truth there,” Clarence said. “You deal drugs?”

“No.” He tensed up, then quickly added, “Wait, yeah, sometimes.”

“Almost strike two. Good thinkin’, Davey. Keep telling the truth, and you’ll keep breathing. Okay. Did you kill Sylvester over on MLK back in June?”

Davey’s eyes looked wild. “No way, man.” The arc jumped to his arm, which twitched and flexed.

“The machine knows you did it. Strike two.” Clarence picked up the Glock 17 and with a dramatic flourish racked the slide to chamber a round. He thought about Tommy Lee Jones in
The Fugitive.
“One more lie and your brains are wallpaper,” Clarence said. Davey let out a low moan.

“You also killed Raphael, the Woodland Park Blood.” Davey looked horrified, yet he didn’t deny it. “But I’m not going to give you a chance to lie about him, because next lie I have to shoot you. See, I’m not here about those boys. Now—do you know who gave Leesa Fletcher the cocaine that killed her?”

Davey looked down.

“Answer me. Now.”

“Yeah. GC do it.”

“She wasn’t a user. He forced it on her, didn’t he? And you were with him, weren’t you?”

“We cased her crib. Witch’s parents drove off, we come to the door. Said we wanted to talk. GC offered her coke. She wouldn’t take it. He had me make up this heavy mix. I hold her down, and GC shot it in her arm. Witch went quick.”

“Who told you and GC to do this?”

“Nobody.” Beads of sweat stood out on his head. He watched the induction coil as if it were a rattlesnake. “I mean, everything come by envelopes. Think it’s the same dude. Can’t be sure. We’d do the job, money just showed up. That’s all I know, man, I swear.”

“Did you do the same thing with Gracie? Force an injection on her?”

“Didn’t have to force Gracie. She be a base head, crack witch.”