Fire in the Streets (25 page)

I stalk toward the bedroom, trying to ignore the fact that he didn't actually answer the question.

I
CROSS THROUGH THE BACK ROOM OF THE OFFICE,
toward the kitchen. Leroy and Hamlin have their heads close together. As usual I'm invisible to them.

“It follows,” Leroy's saying. “I spoke to Rocco inside, and he says only those four guys knew for sure where they'd be meeting that day.”

My feet keep moving, but my heart stalls. In the kitchen, I hover near the doorway, listening closely.

“Let's have a conversation with him. See if we can shake anything loose.”

“He's coming in for a policing shift after he gets off work this afternoon.”

I lean against the doorjamb. I don't know whether to be nervous or relieved. If Leroy figures out on his own it was Raheem, then the truth is out there and I'm off the hook.

“Seems out of character for him, though, doesn't it?” Leroy says.

“How do you know? We haven't known him that long.” But, no, Leroy's known Raheem forever. Something's wrong here.

“We haven't known a lot of these people long. That doesn't necessarily mean . . .”

Hamlin sighs. “Look we're not going to accuse him, okay? Let's just keep a close eye on Gumbo for a while.”

I gasp. Slap my hand over my mouth to try and cover it. I don't think they heard, because then Leroy says, “We can't take our time with it, though. The policers are more and more nervous every time they go out. They're all secondguessing each other. It's getting out of control, and how long before folks take matters into their own hands?”

“Gumbo's bearing the brunt of it. No one wants to go on patrol with him,” Hamlin says.

“Makes sense to me.”

“But by the same logic, it could have been Raheem.”

“Come on,” Leroy scoffs. “We grew up together. It had to be Gumbo, or else the pool is wider than we think. And that's a whole new set of problems.”

I back farther into the kitchen. Run the water in the sink to drown out their voices. I hate what's happening here. The unconditional trust in Leroy's voice when Raheem's name came up. He's the perfect informant, I realize, because everyone does trust him. No one would ever guess they
need to hold secrets from him. And now Leroy suspects Gumbo. Someone is going to be wrongfully accused. Someone is going to be held accountable for Raheem's mistakes. Can I stand by and let that happen?

I bend my head over the sink and drink water from the tap as a distraction. It doesn't especially work. I shut off the tap and wipe my mouth with my hand. I walk straight out into the room, straight up to Hamlin and Leroy. No idea what I'm going to do when I get there.

“Hey, Maxie-girl,” Leroy says. “How are my eyes and ears?” I hear the teasing humor in his voice and I know it means he doesn't take me seriously. Never has. Never will. He doesn't expect me to come back with any real information, because the information I've already given him is flawed. Surely Leroy knows by now that the man in the car outside the clinic is a doctor. Sam's friend. But he never told me I was wrong. He let me go on believing I had reported a spy. Let me go on believing that I was making a difference.

“How are my eyes and ears?”
If he had said it any other way, I might have been able to hold it in. I might have been able to put it off another day, another week, maybe forever. But as it is, the truth is bursting out of me. I have information. I have knowledge that can help. Finally, what I can do actually matters. Right now I can make my mark as the girl who discovered the traitor in the ranks. I can save the Panthers
from wondering who it is that doesn't have our backs, and maybe save Gumbo or someone else from accusation or a punishment he doesn't deserve.

But to speak means to sacrifice something, something so special between me and my brother. It would destroy him, destroy us, and I can see it all unfolding and turning ugly in front of my eyes.

“Can you excuse us, Maxie?” Hamlin says. “We need to speak in private.” Five seconds ago, I was listening to everything, and they didn't even notice. Now that they do see me, they want to send me away. I can't win.

I can't stand to be here any longer. I can't stand to be that girl everyone laughs at, the one who wants to be a Panther so bad she bleeds it and they still say no. I'm tempted to run, to hide my face and hide the truth a while longer. But I don't move a single inch. I stand and let myself cry in front of them, because I know how it feels to run. I know how it feels to hide. And the thing with the Panthers is supposed to be about putting all that behind us and standing up.

“Maxie?” Leroy says, suddenly concerned.

“I know who the informant is.” The words all but slice my throat coming out.

I've told them before, many times, that I know what being a Panther means. I know what you have to give up.
I was wrong. I didn't know, not everything. Not enough. I thought it always meant giving up your life, being willing to die for the people, for the cause, but apparently sometimes it means doing something that's hard to live with. Like taking someone's life, with a bullet or with your words. Sometimes it means harboring a wound that can't be seen, one that bleeds on the inside with no hope of stopping. Ever.

W
HEN I COME INTO OUR ROOM,
Raheem is lying on the bed, arms crossed beneath his head, staring out the window.

“You told them.” He says it like it was inevitable somehow, and maybe it was.

I nod.

He rolls to his feet with a sigh. “Okay, then.”

“Not okay,” I blurt. “Everything's ruined! They're never going to trust me again.”

Raheem scoffs. “Well, you got bigger problems now, kid.” He reaches under the bed and pulls out a big green duffel bag. Spreads it on the mattress.

I sink onto the bed. Everything we've worked for, destroyed. “How could you do this to me?”

“Why do you think I did this in the first place?” he shouts. “I did it for you.”

“We coulda got by,” I shout back. “We always did before.”

“Yeah, well, we weren't getting by. Not this time.”

“I'd rather starve than be a traitor.”

Raheem towers over me, glistening with rage, with tears. “You don't know what it means to starve. Not like Mama. Not like me.” His voice cracks. “We always put you first.”

He rips through the closet, tossing stuff onto the bed. He starts shoving it all into the duffel.

It dawns on me, finally, what he's doing. He's packing. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“You're leaving?”

“Jesus, Maxie. Did you think I was joking when I said they would kill me?”

“No, but . . .” I try to fathom it. The Panthers aren't about killing people, we just want to protect the community. “Leroy wouldn't do that.”

“Okay, fine,” he says. “Maybe not Leroy. Maybe not tomorrow. But someone, someday, with a trigger itch and a grudge. Probably someday soon.”

“No.” I fight it. The truth of it.

“And I'd deserve it, too,” he says bitterly. “After what I did. Do you think I didn't hate it? That I don't hate myself for
doing it?” He sighs. “Every moment in those pigs' presence, every little thing I told them, knowing how they'd use it?”

The bed seems to sag beneath me. “So you're leaving.”

“Getting as far from Chicago as I can.”

“Oh.” I can't bring myself to say it:
What are we going to do without you?
“For how long?”

Raheem chokes on a laugh. “You better hope that job comes through for Ma; otherwise you're going to have to go and get something yourself. Someone's got to bring money in. You'll see how it is, and then you come back again and judge me.”

The sound of the duffel zipper is the sound of something being sliced, torn, ruined. Raheem hefts the bag in his hand, testing the weight. Sets it back down. He looks around the room wearing this distant expression, like a part of him is already long gone.

“Okay,” he says quietly. All the mad that was in him seems to have softened. “Come give me a hug before I go. I don't know when we'll see each other.”

Tears spring to my eyes. I don't like the sound of that. “Heem,” I whisper.

“It's okay,” he says. “Just get over here. I gotta go.”

My arms lock around his waist and he holds the back of my head with his big hand. I want to say I'm sorry, and I am, but it doesn't seem like enough.

“Are you going to hate me forever?” I whisper. Half of me thinks it was all wrong, what I did.

Raheem sighs. I feel his breath, his head bent over mine. “You do what you have to do, right? And afterward, you figure out how to live with it.”

W
HEN I GO LOOKING FOR SAM,
it's because I want him to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right. My eyes stream with tears. I don't bother to stem them. The terror of what I've done seems to be hiding around every corner, leaping out.

“Raheem is the traitor,” I tell him. No way to ease into it.

Sam knows already, has been looking for me, too. “I heard.” He opens his arms to me. “I can't believe it.”

I cry against his chest and he tightens his arms around me. “We're going to figure it out,” he says. “We're going to get through it.” He's hurt too. Betrayed. Like we all are. It's in the very air:
Raheem, how could you?

“How'd they catch him?” Sam says. “How long has it been going on?”

“What?” I lift my head. He's looking at me, open wondering on his face. He knows, but he doesn't know
everything. Maybe Hamlin and Leroy kept the source of the news to themselves.

“I—I had to tell them,” I manage, through the fist my throat has become. “It was wrong, all wrong, what he was doing.”

Sam draws back, holding me at arm's length.

“You turned him in?” He says it like he can't believe it. I can't believe it myself. “How could you do that?” He releases me like I'm radioactive.

“Please,” I beg, reaching out a hand to him. I don't want to talk it through, I just want Sam to make me feel better. He steps away from my touch as if it'll burn him. As if the traitor bug is contagious. Raheem betrays the Panthers. I betray Raheem. Which is worse, in the end?

“You didn't tell on me when you thought it was me,” Sam says. “That's your brother!”

“I know,” I cry.

Sam looks dangerously close to tears himself. “You never turn your back on family.”

“The Panthers are family, too,” I whisper.

“No,” he says. “No.”

“I did what I had to,” I say. “Power to the people.”

Sam looks at me coldly. “I don't even know who you are anymore.”

Then he walks away.

I
T TAKES EVERY PIECE OF COURAGE INSIDE OF
me to walk into the Panther office and face Leroy and Jolene. I do it, but everything from my stomach to my fingertips is trembling.

“Raheem left town,” I tell them. “You don't have to worry about him anymore.”

“He's gone?” Leroy says.

“I told him I had to tell you, so he left. That's everything I know. Please don't kill me.”

“Honey, no,” Jolene says. “You've been so brave.” She comes around and hugs me. She's all soft and warm and I fade into her like a shadow. She brushes the side of my face.

“I don't know why he did it,” I admit. I can't understand it, still. We needed money, but we've had hard times before. Hungry times. Times without power and washing laundry in the sink by hand. It hurts but we get through it.
I struggle not to cry against Jolene. I can't imagine betraying the Panthers, and Raheem has taught me everything I know. Does that mean I have what it takes to be a traitor inside me? I guess I must, because I've already turned traitor—against Raheem.

“People make mistakes for lots of reasons,” Leroy says. “I think I can guess Raheem's.”

“It's over now.” Jolene's voice is reassuring, but through my squinted eyes I see Leroy shaking his head at her.

It's not over. Rocco and Slim are in prison. Fred Hampton's office has been raided. Who knows what else happened that we don't even know about. All because Raheem slipped information to the pigs.

And I'm caught up in it. By blood. And by the fact that I've shown myself as someone who knows how to betray.

I pull away from Jolene. “I'll leave now, if you want me to,” I offer, knowing that I have to. Maybe the Panthers can't trust me again after this mess. It will break me, if they send me to the street, if my time in the Panther world is over, but I try to bury that knowledge deeper.

It's quiet for a moment. Long enough that I wonder if they're even going to speak, or if I'm just supposed to
know
it's time to walk away.

“Maxie, I still want you keeping your eyes out,” Leroy
says. “There are always going to be people trying to bring us down.”

“I can stay?” I whisper.

Jolene touches my face. “Maxie, everyone knows you're a Panther through and through.”

A
PANTHER THROUGH AND THROUGH.
It's what I've wanted. It's been everything. If she'd said it to me a week ago, a month ago, I would have been over the moon.

Even now I cling to it. Tell myself I did the right thing.

It's only been a day, but already I miss Raheem. I don't know how to think about him now, without a place to put him, like the bed across the room or policing the streets with the Panthers. I imagine him floating, getting smaller and smaller as he moves away and away.