Black Hornet Read Free Page B

less you done turned white, Lewis. Have to tell you, I always thought you might have that in you.” He laughed.
    “Yeah, well. It’s hard enough being a black man in this town now, B.R. Way things are going, it could soon get a lot harder.”
    He looked at me a moment. “See your point. Crazy gon’ always make room for more of the same.” He slapped the towel across a shoulder. “But damn it’s good to see you, boy.”
    “You too.”
    “And looking good. That jacket silk?”
    “Better be, what I gave for it”
    “Stayin’ busy, I hope.”
    “Rent gets paid. Most of the time, anyway.”
    “And Miss Verne?”
    “She’s fine.”
    “She is for sho’. That’s a stone fact.” He sipped wine. “Whoo- ee . Raccoon must of pissed in the cask that year. Let’s go find us a place.”
    I followed him to one of the booths at the back. Maybe half the upholstery and stuffing was still hanging on. Some kind of plastic film had been put up in the window there, each pane a different color, gold, bottle green, purple, a stained-glass effect. Now the film had baked dry and started chipping away at the edges.
    “So who you think this is? Got to be a brother.”
    I shrugged. “Not my business.”
    “Not yet, anyway. Like you say.” He sipped wine again, drew his lips tight against his teeth.
    A man about my age wearing a baseball cap, jeans and dashiki came in off the street and stood by the door peering into the darkness. Moments later, he stood by our booth.
    “You Robinson?”
    Again that quick, shallow nod.
    “Ellie ain’t goan be here tonight like she prob’ly tole you. Fact is, she ain’t goan ever see you no more a-tall.”
    Buster drank off an inch of wine. Set the glass back on the table, in the same ring it had left. Smiled.
    “Woman’ll do what she’s called to, boy. Cain’t you or no one else on God’s earth keep her from it.”
    The young man held up a knife. It had started out as a butcher knife. The handle had been replaced with tape and both sides worked down to a fine edge. It looked cold, dark, deadly.
    “Then I just might haf to fix things so you won’t haf a int’rest no longer. Fix yo’ things. You hear me, ol’ man?”
    I eased around the curve of the table and stood, hands out in front of me, fingers spread.
    “Hey. Be cool, brother. You have a name?”
    His eyes swung momentarily to me, then back to B.R.
    “ He knows.”
    “But I don’t.”
    He thought about that. “Cornell.”
    “Okay, Cornell. Just be cool. Whatever the problem is, we can talk about it. You look like a smart man to me, someone might know his way around. Just put the knife away, okay? Let’s keep it simple.”
    “You stay out of it, man.”
    “Can’t do that,” I told him.
    The edge in my voice brought his eyes back to me.
    Moments ticked by. Threw themselves over that edge.
    “Who the fuck are you? Whatchu doin’ here?”
    “Passing time with an old friend. Not looking for trouble. Neither is he. My name’s Lew Griffin.”
    “Griffin … I heard once about a Lew Griffin. Came round to my grandparents to collect on some furniture they took on payments—”
    “My job, Cornell.”
    “—and wound up giving them money enough for two months. You wouldn’t be that Lew Griffin?”
    “They seemed like good people.” Though damn if I remembered them.
    “Yeah. Raised me and three sisters, no help from anyone, never a complaint. And they was already in their sixties.”
    He looked back at me.
    “They gone now.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Things just ain’t ever as easy as they seem, are they?”
    “Not usually:”
    “Lot better if they were.”
    “Maybe someday they will be.”
    Cornell’s eyes went back and forth.
    “That ol’ man goan leave my woman alone?”
    “I’m sure he will, now he knows how you feel.”
    “Need to hear him say it.”
    B.R. shrugged.
    Further moments plunged off the edge.
    “Well,” Cornell said. “Guess I do owe you one, Lew Griffin, rememberin’ my grandparents