36
CAN WE COME in?” Valerie said. “We’re drowning.”
“No. Get out of here,” Grady said.
“Why are you acting like this?” she said. ?
?Where’s Aaron?”
“He left his heap here and went off with some guys,” Grady said. “I thought he was with you all.”
“That’s his hat on the floor,” she said. “Where is he, Grady?”
“We had an argument,” he said. “It’s nothing to worry about. Will y’all get out of here?”
“No, we will not,” Valerie said. “Have you done something to Aaron? What are you hiding?”
“A million dollars is what he’s hiding,” Saber said.
Way to go, Sabe. You just flushed all of us. But how could I be mad at him? The Sabe had gone looking for his old friend.
“Come in,” Grady said.
I heard Saber and Valerie step inside the foyer and the door closing behind them.
“Your heap is up the street?” Grady said.
“Yeah, the weld on my manifold cracked,” Saber said.
“I’ll call a wrecker. It’s on me,” Grady said.
“We don’t want a wrecker. Where’s Aaron?” Valerie said.
“Downstairs,” Grady said. “We need to work things out. I’m going to bring the elevator up. Vick’s here.”
“Vick Atlas is here?” Valerie said. “That’s why that clock is smashed on the floor?”
“Take it easy, Val,” Grady said.
“Don’t you dare talk down to me,” she said.
“Lower your voice.”
“Have you hurt Aaron?” she said.
“I’m bringing the elevator up,” Grady said. “None of this is my doing. All of you had your chance, but you wouldn’t listen. Now we’re either going to work this out, or the shit is going through the fan.”
I heard the engine that drove the elevator come alive, then the elevator jolted and began rising. I watched Vick bolt for the stairwell, the hypodermic needle in one hand, the semi-automatic in the other.
Our lives were now in the hands of infantile men. They were irrational, frightened, narcissistic, ruthless, and cruel. One had murdered his father because he wasn’t allowed to play a song recorded by a man of color; the other had been disfigured and perhaps neurologically impaired by a father he both imitated and despised. I thought again about my father and his fellow soldiers who went over the top in the Great War. I wondered if my legs would fail me when I had to face my own ordeal.
THE ELEVATOR STOPPED on the first floor and the outer door slid open. At the same time, Vick emerged from the stairwell at the back of the house.
“Aaron, are you all right?” Valerie said. She was dripping water on the floor; her hair was glued to her cheeks.
“Sure, Val,” I said.
Then she saw Vick coming toward her. “Is that a gun?”