Читать книгу: «His Uptown Girl»

PROLOGUE

Uptown New Orleans, September 1, 2005

LOOKING OVER HIS SHOULDER, Tre Jackson ducked between the buildings and then slid behind an abandoned car. For several seconds, he focused on gulping down the soggy air pressing in around him. Okay. Just breathe, Tre. In. Out.

Breathe.

His heart galloped, slamming hard against his ribs. Shadows enveloped him, but he worried his grubby white T-shirt stood out too much. He crouched to make himself smaller, peeking out from behind the grille of the Honda. The street before him looked empty, but Tre knew eyes were everywhere—eyes belonging to desperate people who could grab him, shake him down and leave him for dead.

Crazy white folks with guns.

Effed-up brothers with guns.

Police with guns.

Made an eleven-year-old kid holding shit he stole feel like he couldn’t breathe too good. After all, what was one more dead black kid?

Fear washed over Tre, hard and fast, but he beat it back with the baseball bat he kept in his head. No time for thinking too much. Had to act. His mama and brother, Devontay, counted on him to be cool.

He clutched the junk he’d taken tighter to his chest, wishing he’d been brave enough to break the window of the grocery store—the place had looked empty, but Tre knew some store owners sat inside with shotguns. So he’d passed it and rooted around in a store with windows already busted. Not much anyone would want left—bunch of junk—but he’d found a weird box filled with junk wrapped inside an old shirt. It had been hidden on a high shelf. He’d grabbed it, and climbed back out into darkness. Tre had no clue if any of the stuff would score food and water in a trade, but he’d find out.

Stepping softly, he crept around the side of the old Honda, its gaping windows reminding him of the man he’d seen several blocks back. Vacant. Abandoned. Dead.

A rat ran across his grave, but Tre ignored the shiver creeping up his back. He didn’t have time for no rats or dead men lying like trash in the gutter where black ribbons of sludge trailed into the clogged sewers. The water had gone down in some places, but that made it even more dangerous. Like a war zone he’d seen on TV once.

Yeah. Tre was livin’ in a war zone. But he always had. Magnolia Projects ain’t no cakewalk. He’d seen dudes shot. Seen bitches beat down. Kids ignored. Ain’t easy living in ’Nolia. But outside the projects, there had been order.

Until four days ago.

Tre searched around for something he could use to hit somebody...if they got the idea they could mess with him. He was afraid to look in the car. He’d seen other dead people. Old folks who thought they’d be all right, but found out quick the storm wasn’t like all the others.

He didn’t see anything he could use, but he had the kitchen knife in the back of his pants. He’d made his mama keep the gun. G-Slim hated his mama, and G-Slim was one mean brother, quick to anger. With no soul. Better Mama and Shorty D keep the gun.

Tre stuffed the stolen bundle down the front of his shirt, hiking up his pants and cinching tight his one school belt. Made him look kinda like a pregnant lady or one of those starving African kids, but it kept his hands free. He slid the knife from where it fit against the curve of his back and removed the cheap sheath, shoving it in the pocket of his jeans.

Time to go.

He listened hard before he moved, but the city was silent. Not like it normally sounded. No music. No laughter. No horns honking on the overpass. Like a whole ’nother place, a whole ’nother place that smelled of death...and fear.

Certain no one was about to grab him, Tre slipped out from behind the car, wishing for the third or fourth time he’d pulled on a dark T-shirt. He stepped over an old oil can and waded through muck and trash piled up on the sides of the street. Water still sat in some low areas, but he’d avoid them. He knew the way back to ’Nolia. He’d walked there from every direction.

Twenty minutes later, after ducking out of the beams of a few National Guard trucks and seeing a couple of boats with spotlights in some of the flooded streets, Tre waded through nasty water to reach the steps of his building in the Magnolia Housing Projects. He’d seen only one lone soul on his journey back to his place—some crazy dude sitting on his porch staring past Tre into the inky, still night.

Tre gripped the knife tighter as he crept toward the safest stairwell. He inched open the rusted-out door, wincing at the sound. Once he got inside, he’d be safe. The world would forget about him, his mama and Shorty D holed up like rats, sitting inside with rotten milk, the whole place smelling like shit. Even G-Slim would forget about them. About how much he hated Tre’s mama. About how she’d ratted him out to that detective a month back. About getting even with her.

The air left his lungs as he got jerked backward.

“What you doin’, lil’ Tre?”

He stumbled, losing his balance, and the knife flew from his hand, clattering onto the cement stoop.

A bowling ball sank in his stomach. Daylight protected him in the projects. Usually, the Dooney Boys left the little kids alone, but this wasn’t “usual” and night covered up stuff. Tre should have left earlier. He should have—

“Damn, son. Got you a knife. What you gonna do with that, cuz?” G-Slim asked, lifting Tre up by the back of his T-shirt.

Tre couldn’t breathe. He coughed and swiped at G-Slim’s arms.

The man let him go, laughing when Tre sprawled on his ass, hitting a stone planter Miss Janie had left on the stoop. She’d let Shorty D plant some seeds a couple of months ago. Now those planters held weeds and dirt. “What you got in your shirt?”

Tre almost pissed his pants. G-Slim had killed some Chinese guy a couple streets over when he wouldn’t pay for some smack. Tre’s friend had seen the dude’s brains and stuff. “Nothin you want.”

“How you know?” Another smile. And it wasn’t no good smile. Nasty and mean. Tre scooted back, teetering on the edge of the stoop, his heart tripping on itself with fear. He tried to think about how to get away, but his mind wouldn’t work. Tears filled his eyes and he forgot how to be hard. How to pretend he was brave.

G-Slim peered down at Tre. “Where’s your mama, boy?”

“She ’vacuated.”

“Why you still here?”

Tre tried to swallow but his mouth felt full of sand. “I—I didn’t wanna go. Mama took Shorty D on the bus, but I ran away ’cause I ain’t leavin’ Big Mama.”

G-Slim stared at him, and Tre prayed the man bought the lie. His grandmother had already left before the storm, but G-Slim didn’t know that. And he didn’t know Shorty D and Mama were still on the third floor.

In the moonlight, Tre could see only the whites of the man’s eyes. But he knew what lay in their coal-black depths. Revenge. “That so?”

“Yeah. I’s going back to get Miss Janie’s horn and then I’m going to Big Mama’s.”

G-Slim moved toward him. Tre shrank against the rough brick, feeling around for the knife, hoping somehow he could save himself. Maybe G-Slim wouldn’t kill him, but maybe he would.

A gun fired, the shot hitting far above Tre’s head. He squeezed his eyes shut as dust fell on him.

“Get your janky ass away from my boy,” Tre’s mom said from the doorway. Tre opened his eyes, shocked to find his mother standing on the stoop in a stained T-shirt. Talia’s braids were ragged, but both her gaze and the gun were steady.

G-Slim held up both his hands as if Tre’s mama was the police. “Whoa, now. I ain’t hurtin’ your boy.”

“I’m going to blow a hole in you a truck can drive through if you don’t back the hell up off my boy,” she said, eyeing G-Slim as if he was a cockroach sitting on their table. “Get upstairs, Tre.”

Tre moved quick as a snake, bolting through the space between his mama and the doorway.

“Oh, that’s how it is, bitch?” G-Slim said, his voice not sounding the least bit scared. G-Slim was hard. He’d been in prison a couple times, always out because no witnesses would testify against him...because they knew they’d bleed their life out on the street.

“That’s how it is, Gerald,” Talia said, her voice firm but sad. Tre felt the tears on his cheeks. He hadn’t even realized he’d started crying. And his pants felt wet. Maybe he’d peed them. He couldn’t remember.

“Go on then,” G-Slim said. Tre couldn’t see him, but he imagined he’d dropped his hands and turned toward Talia. G-Slim wasn’t afraid of a bullet. He wasn’t afraid of Talia. He’d beat the shit out of her many times before declaring her a waste of space. G-Slim didn’t even give Talia anything for Devontay, and G-Slim was Shorty D’s daddy.

“Oh, I am, and you better stay the hell away from me and my kids. I got plenty of bullets,” Talia said, inching back through the door. She didn’t take her eyes off the banger in front of her. “Tre, get your ass upstairs like I told you. ’Bout that time, baby.”

Tre turned and ran up the stairs two at a time, the bundle of stolen goods thumping against his belly. He and Mama had planned for every scenario in regards to the storm and G-Slim. He knew what he had to do even though it made him feel sick. His job was to get Shorty D out of ’Nolia. Mama had gotten bad sick over the past days, and she’d told Tre he had to be the man. It was up to him.

He ran into the apartment, ignoring the smell of vomit and spoiled food. Shorty D stood in his baby bed in the corner wailing, a lone sound in the still of the building. Most folks had left. Gone with the National Guard. Like they should have done. But Talia wouldn’t leave because she said the old people had to go first. And she hadn’t found Aunt Cici.

Tre pulled out the bundle from his shirt and ran to the closet. They had a place they hid stuff. G-Slim had used it to hide drugs, but now Talia used it to hide the gun, bullets and other stuff they didn’t want anyone to find. Tre lifted the wood subfloor and jabbed the bundle into the space between the aged joists, tucking it in good, slamming the board back into place and tugging the tired green shag carpet over it. He’d just backed out of the closet when Talia came through the front door, sliding the dead bolt into place and doubling over in pain.

“Get Devontay and go. G-Slim ain’t waitin’. He mad and we ain’t got time.”

“Mama—”

“You do what I say, Trevon.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, grabbing Shorty D, who still cried. Tre jabbed a pacifier in the toddler’s mouth and Shorty stopped whining. “Come on, Shorty. We gonna play a game. Gonna be fun.”

Tre dragged his brother over the bed’s rail and sat him on his hip. He grabbed the dirty cloth diaper bag sitting on the table, shouldering it as he moved to the bedroom, sparing a parting look at his mother, and at the room where his only worthwhile possession sat on his bed—his saxophone. Couldn’t carry it with him. Shorty D was too big as is.

“I’m scared, Mama.”

“No time for scared. You’s a man now.”

“Come with us,” Tre said, shifting his brother to his other arm. He didn’t care that the tears fell on his cheeks. G-Slim would kill his mama if he got hold of her. Talia wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t believe she’d fired a gun and stood up to G-Slim earlier.

“I’ll come when you safe. Go. Now.”

Tre moved quickly because it was all he could do. He flung open the closet, stepping over his few pairs of shoes, pulled the air-conditioning vent from where it sat under a makeshift shelf. It was a false front, put in by whoever had the apartment before them. The hole led to a small space in the wall, which led to a similar vent in the apartment next door—Miss Janie’s apartment. No one had ever questioned the vents, though the projects didn’t have no air-conditioning.

Shorty D fussed as Tre scraped his head on the crumbling drywall. “Shh, Shorty, shh.”

The toddler quieted and laid his head on Tre’s shoulder. Tre patted his brother’s back and pulled the grate into place. For a moment, he paused, trying to hear his mother. Trying to decide if he really had to take Shorty D and go find a policeman.

Then he heard the door break open and his mama scream.

Gunfire made him clap his hand over Shorty D’s mouth.

More gunfire before his mama yelled, “Run!”

Tre choked back a sob as he punched in the grate in Miss Janie’s apartment, pushed past a small cabinet hiding the secret entrance and headed for the window and the ancient fire escape.

Shorty clung to Tre as if he knew what was going down, as if he knew his life depended on holding on.

As if he knew his father was next door killing their mother.

Tre set Shorty D down so he could open the crumbling window. G-Slim would figure things out soon enough...unless he was dead. Tre couldn’t count on that so he snatched up Shorty D, climbed out onto the iron scaffolding and shut down his mind, focusing on simply breathing.

Just breathe, Tre. In. Out. Breathe.