Ray Ray put me on the floor, up against a display of Red Bull. The boy called Marcus sat across from me in a grocery store aisle, eating Pringles from a can. For the moment, I couldn’t see anyone else.
Ray Ray squatted down on his heels. “Tell me what I need to know, and we’ll make it quick.”
I looked over at the Korean, lying three feet to my right. Wax eyes stared back.
“Your friend, Mr. Lee, had a side business. I think those boxes downstairs had something to do with it.”
“I know all about Lee’s side business.” Ray Ray stood up. Marcus moved his gun from his side to his lap.
“If you know Lee’s business, you know he was cutting deals with someone downtown,” I said. “My friend’s a newspaper reporter. Asked me to come down here and talk to Lee. See what I could find out.”
Ray Ray moved close again. “Newspaper reporter, huh?”
“That’s right. A newspaper reporter.”
“And that’s what you got?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Ray Ray shook his head. “Too bad. Cecil.”
The kid with dreadlocks came off a back wall.
“Give me three minutes,” Ray Ray said, “then fade this motherfucker. Jace dug the hole downstairs. Marcus and James, you help.”
Ray Ray handed my gun to Cecil and left without a look back. Jace followed. The three who remained crowded close. Each of them staring at a dead man. And not seeing a thing.
“Stand up,” Cecil said. I did.
“Where you want it?”
I watched his hands on the gun. Itchy, eager.
“Wait,” Marcus said.
Cecil turned. “Fuck you, bitch.” Back to me. “Gonna give you a head shot, boy.”
“You ever kill anyone?” I said.
“Fuck you.” Cecil pressed the gun to my chest, but still needed to work up to it. I looked behind him. Maybe Cecil read his death in my eyes. Maybe he just needed a little more time. Whatever the reason, he turned. And that’s when Marcus shot Cecil in the face.
Cecil knocked a few cans of Ajax off the shelves as he fell. Marcus stepped forward, his gun leveled at my belt.
“James, pick up the piece.”
The tall kid grabbed my gun off the floor and jumped away from Cecil like he was radioactive.
“Shoot him in the chest,” Marcus said without taking his eyes off me. James stood in the aisle, paralyzed. Marcus stepped back and reached out. James handed him the piece. Marcus popped Cecil twice more and kicked the body. Then he threw my gun on the floor at my feet.
“Still gonna have to kill you,” Marcus said.
“Why?”
“Why kill you?”
I nodded toward Cecil. “Why him?”
“Promise I made to myself. Besides, it’s gonna be you that did the shooting. Me and James just gonna be heroes. But first, we goin’ down and grab those boxes.”
“You killed Lee.”
“Me and Lee in business together. Ray Ray was gonna put Lee out of the business. I came down to get my share this afternoon. Before Ray Ray got his.”
“The boxes?”
“That’s right.”
“What happened?”
Marcus shrugged. “Tall man comes in with a rifle. Shoots up the cellar. I got out through the tunnel.”
“Who?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Fucker as white as you.”
“He took the dope?”
“Once I pop you, maybe it’s gonna be you that took the dope. Either way, I be all square.”
Marcus raised his gun. I noticed the fine hair on his forearm, white light rippling in from the street and haloing around his head. My eyes swept back across the store. My mind opened wide and drank. Boxes of Cheerios and bottles of Drano. A thin layer of dust on a can of peas. Fat bottles of beer stacked in a cooler beside curved bottles of wine. Floorboards, warped by years of damp heat, alive with cockroaches scurrying around drops and puddles of blood. Bodies stretched and dull, gold shell casings.
I took it all in as Marcus leaned back on the trigger. Then the world exploded. Vince Rodriguez fired one shot as he came up out of the cellar. I heard a second gun go off, but felt nothing as I hit the floor. The tall kid named James scrambled for the door. The little one with the gun, just behind. Then Rodriguez was standing over me, looking down and shaking his head.