One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips

Author:Gary Phillips [Phillips, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2022-02-13T19:15:38+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

In the morning, after calling Doris Letrec to tell her the letter had been delivered, Ingram drove back to the mystic woman’s house in Watts. He figured to brace her and Clovis, do whatever the hell it was they wanted him to do if need be, and get the information about Hoyt from them in exchange. When he’d come here with Edwards, he’d made a note of the street the house was on. It wasn’t hard spotting it in the day given the ankh and cross staked in the lawn, the old pickup still in the driveway. After parking he went up the front steps, knocking lightly on the latched screen door. There was no answer. He leaned in closer and knocked again, this time with more force. Still no response.

He walked off the end of the porch onto the driveway and went down the side of the house, peering under drawn shades but seeing no one inside. There was a window in the back door, and he looked in on the kitchen where the woman had been cooking the time before. The room was tidy, no dishes piled in the sink, no occupants. The swing door was open. He detected no movement in the dining room. He started back up the driveway and found a white man in slacks and a loose bowling-style shirt in front of him.

“You friends with that gal calls herself Hanisha?” He was taller and broader than Ingram.

He knew this man, or rather knew his face. “Who’s that?”

“Who’s that, he says.”

When he turned his head to the side Ingram recognized him—one of the two in the Dodge Polaris keeping watch at Kinslow’s sendoff. The other one stepped into view. He had an open buck knife in his hand and Ingram was sure he’d been fooling with the latched screen door to get it open. The larger man was in his face.

“Whatchu doing around here?”

“I should be asking you that. This is a colored neighborhood and you two ain’t hardly cops.”

“You hear this sumabitch?”

“Got a mouth on him, that’s for sure.” The man stepped closer, tapping the tip of the knife against Ingram’s breastbone. “Wicks asked you plain, boy, you don’t seem to have no wax in your ears. What the hell you got to do with Hanisha?”

“She’s my cousin is all. Came by to see her.”

The larger man, Wicks, frowned. “That sound right to you?”

“All these darkies related some kind of way or another,” the other one said derisively. “Their daddies planting their seed in whichever easy dame open her legs for the pipe.”

Wicks was staring at Ingram. “I don’t know,” he drawled, “can’t place him but I got the feeling I’ve seen this chump before.”

“Shining your shoes, probably.” Knife man swung his jaw toward the detached garage in back. “Let’s whisper in his ear about it.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Wicks made to grab Ingram and got punched in his face for the effort.

“Fucker,” he growled.

Ingram tried to run but Wicks recovered faster than he’d hoped and latched onto his shoulders from behind, jerking him backward and upsetting his balance.

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