Phil passed the front room with the invariable pall of cigarette smoke and interminable card game and rushed directly back to the office. He was relieved to see Twin at the desk.
Phil waited impatiently for Twin to wrap up a payoff from one of their eleven-year-old pushers and send the kid away. “There’s a problem,” Phil said.
“There’s always a problem,” Twin said philosophically. He was recounting the ragged stack of greenbacks the kid had brought in.
“Not like this one,” Phil said. “Reginald’s been tagged.”
Twin looked up from the money with an expression as if he’d just been slapped. “Get out!” he said. “Where’d you hear that shit?”
“It’s true,” Phil insisted. He took one of the several beat-up straight-backed chairs standing against the wall and turned it around so he could sit on it backward. The pose provided visual harmony with the backward baseball cap he always wore.
“Who says?” Twin asked.
“It’s all over the street,” Phil said. “Emmett heard it from a pusher up in Times Square. Seems that the doc is being protected by the Gangsta Hoods from Manhattan Valley on the Upper West Side.”
“You mean one of the Hoods iced Reginald?” Twin asked in total disbelief.
“That’s the story,” Phil said. “Shot him through the head.”
Twin slammed his open palm on the desk hard enough to send the tattered stack of greenbacks wafting off into the air. He leaped to his feet and paced. He gave the metal wastebasket a hard kick.
“I can’t believe this,” he said. “What the hell is this world coming to? I don’t understand it. They’d do a brother for some white honky doctor. It doesn’t make sense, no way.”
“Maybe the doc is doing something for them,” Phil suggested.
“I don’t care what the hell he’s doing,” Twin raged. He towered over Phil, and Phil cringed. Phil was well aware that Twin could be ruthless and unpredictable when he was pissed, and he was royally pissed at the moment.
Returning to the desk, Twin pounded it again. “I don’t understand this, but there is one thing that I do know. It can’t stand. No way! The Hoods can’t go around knocking off a Black King without a response. I mean, at a minimum we gotta do the doc like we agreed.”
“Word is that the Hoods have a tail on the doc,” Phil said. “They are still protecting him.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Twin said as he retook his seat at the desk. “But it makes things easier. We do the doc and the tail at the same time. But we don’t do it in the Hoods’ neighborhood. We do it where the doc works.”
Twin pulled open the center drawer of his desk and rummaged around. “Where the hell is that sheet about the doc,” he said.
“Side drawer,” Phil said.
Twin glared at Phil. Phil shrugged. He didn’t want to aggravate Twin, but he remembered Twin putting the sheet in the side drawer.
Twin got the sheet out and read it over quickly. “All right,” he said.
“Go get BJ. He’s been itching for action.”
Phil disappeared for two minutes. When he reappeared he had BJ with him. BJ lumbered into the office, his pace belying his notorious quickness. Twin explained the circumstances.
“Think you can handle this?” Twin asked.
“Hey, no problem,” BJ said.
“You want a backup?” Twin asked.
“Hell, no,” BJ said. “I’ll just wait until the two mothers are together, then nail them both.”
“You’ll have to pick the doc up where he works,” Twin said. “We can’t risk going up into the Hoods’ neighborhood unless we go in force. You understand?”
“No problem,” BJ said.
“You got a machine pistol?” Twin asked.
“No,” BJ said.
Twin opened the lower drawer of the desk and took out a Tec like the one he’d given to Reginald. “Don’t lose this,” he said. “We only have so many.”
“No problem,” BJ said. He took the gun and handled it with reverence, turning it over slowly in his hands.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Twin asked.
“You finished?” BJ asked.
“Of course I’m finished,” Twin said. “What do you want, me to come along and hold your hand? Get out of here so you can come back and tell me it’s done.”