IN THE DROP-DEAD WINTER, NO ONE WANTS TO be outdoors. Not even me. I spend more and more time in the Panther office, and less and less time with the girls, who often go to one person’s place or the other to hang out after school. I miss them. But I can see why they don’t miss stamping envelopes and making phone calls.
I’m quite used to the phone at this point. It doesn’t seem as special as it used to, although it’s always fun to dial. Leroy hates talking on the phone, he informed me, and he was delighted to know that I enjoy it. Now I get to make as many calls as he lets me. Nothing too important for party business, but I do things like confirm deliveries and remind volunteers when they’re supposed to show up for stuff.
He even had me call the newspapers and the TV news one time when there was a bunch of unusual cop activity in the neighborhood. Lots of cruisers rolling through. We were afraid something was going to go down. An hour later, a camera crew rolled up in a van and started filming, and wouldn’t you know it, the cop cars started leaving the area, one by one. Leroy goes, “Log that trick in the books. We may need it again. Nice work, Maxie.” I felt important, for a change, and it felt good.
Today, Sam is helping me stuff coins from the newspaper sales into the little paper rolls that Leroy can take to the bank and turn into paper money. We have separated them into piles of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. Now I am stacking the quarters and Sam is sliding the paper sheaths on. Below the desk, he occasionally toes me with his foot and vice versa. Above the desk, we are being very professional.
It’s business as usual. Cherry’s on a heated phone call with someone from the office across town. Leroy and Jolene are bent over the accounting books, running her adding machine, and figuring out how much cash we need to get through the month. Behind us, Hamlin and Lester are getting each other riled up over talk about Cold War politics and the plight of the worker in the global economy. I could follow the debate for a while, but now it’s well over my head, plus I’m occupied with counting. Some neighborhood ladies in the back room are meeting about the upcoming clothing drive.
Things are quiet, until they aren’t.
The door slams open. Gumbo runs breathless into the office. Everyone turns at once, pausing everything. It’s that kind of entrance.
“Trouble,” Gumbo pants. “Pigs got Rocco and Slim. We only just got away.”
Coming in behind him, Raheem says something too, but it’s drowned out by the explosion of questions and reactions to Gumbo’s outburst.
My fingers tremble, spilling a stack of quarters. Rocco? Slim? A stab of ache strikes my stomach. When someone goes in, there’s always a chance he won’t come back out. What would things be like around here without Slim’s constant joking and Rocco’s laughter to lighten the mood?
My eyes cut to Cherry as she fumbles the phone back onto the cradle and rises to her feet, looking horrified.
“Simmer down,” Leroy shouts over the din. “First off, are you guys all right?”
Gumbo nods. “Skin of our teeth, man.”
Raheem looks shaken. He drops onto the couch and rests his head in his hands. He doesn’t even stop me from coming to sit by him and putting my hand on his shoulder.
“What happened?” Hamlin asks, coming forward.
Raheem remains silent. Gumbo takes the lead. “Nothing, far as we can tell. We were meeting up to police. They were just standing by the car waiting for us, and boom.”
Raheem lifts his head. “I was coming round the corner. Running a few minutes late. I saw it happen.”
“I was half a block behind him,” Gumbo says. “Jogged to catch up and I was all joking like if two of us is late, they can’t get mad. They was cuffed and halfway in the car ’fore I got the whole sentence out.”
“What was the charge?” Leroy says.
“We didn’t ask,” Raheem says. “We got the hell out of there.”
“The way those pigs came up on them,” Gumbo says, shaking his head. “It was a planned arrest. They didn’t do anything. We thought they’d haul us in too.”
“It’s okay,” Hamlin says. He lifts the phone from the desk beside Cherry. Dials. “We’ll get our lawyers down there right now to deal with it.”
“No kinda warning. They just took ’em down.” Gumbo grits his teeth. “Shit, we shoulda been there on time. Maybe we coulda stopped it.”
Raheem lowers his face into his hands again. I squeeze his shoulder, thinking, No, then they might have gotten you, too.