Hells Kitchen

. . . . You come with me.”
    “Thanks but I’m out of here,” Pellam said.
    “For good, you mean?”
    Nodding. “Picking up my truck and heading back to the Coast. Need some work. Got some people I owe money to gonna be knocking on my door in about sixty days.”
    “You want me to talk to ’em? I can—”
    Pellam wagged a finger. “Uh-uh.”
    Ramirez shrugged, lifted the corner of the linoleum in the kitchen and pulled up a floorboard. He lifted out Pellam’s Colt and tossed it to him. “Man, you crazy, carry that old thing. I’ll get you a nice Taurus. That a sweet piece. You like that. Bam, bam, bam. A man need a fifteen-shot clip nowadays.”
    “I don’t have as much of a call for one as you do.”
    As he replaced the flooring Ramirez said, “I no watch TV much but I turn on you movie, Pellam, when it come on. When that gonna be?”
    “I’ll let you know,” Pellam muttered.
    The door pushed open and a young Latino man stepped inside, gazing suspiciously at Pellam. He walked over to Ramirez and whispered in his ear. The man nodded and his young associate left.
    Pellam started toward the door. Ramirez said, “Hey, maybe you don’t wanna go so fast. He got some news for you.”
    “Who is he?”
    “My brother.” He nodded after the young man who’d just left.
    “News?”
    “Yeah. You wanna know who broke into you apartment?”
    “I know who broke in. The pyro. The kid who got burnt up. I figured I must’ve got him on tape when I was shooting the building the day after the fire.”
    Ramirez bounced again on his pristine shoes and shook his head. “You wrong man. You dead wrong.”
    *   *   *
    “Yo, cuz.”
    “Hey, Ismail.”
    Pellam stood in front of the Youth Outreach Center. The air was hot, dusty, filled with a glaring shaft of sunlight reflected off a nearby building.
    “Wassup, homes?”
    “Not much,” Pellam answered. “Wassup with you?”
    “Hangin’, you know how it is. Whatchu got there?”
    “A present.”
    “All right, cuz.” The boy stared at the large shopping bag with huge eyes. Pellam handed it to him. The boy opened it up and pulled out the basketball. “Yo, you all right, Pellam! This be fine! Yo, homes, lookit!”
    Two other young boys, a little older, came over and admired the ball. They passed it back and forth.
    “How is it here?” Pellam nodded at the YOC storefront.
    “Ain’t so bad. They don’t dis you so much. But what it is they make you sit an’ listen to these hatters, like priests and counselors, don’t know shit. They tell you stuff. Talking at you, wearing yo’ ear off, axing you things they don’t know ’bout.” He offered an adult shrug. “But, fuck, that life, ain’t it?”
    Pellam couldn’t argue with that.
    “An’, man, that Carol bitch,” he whispered, looking around. “Don’t go messing with her. She ax me why I be comin’ in at three this morning. Give me all kindsa shit. I tell that bitch what she can do.”
    “Did you now?”
    “Hell’s yeah. . . . Well, I tried. But there ain’t no talking to that woman, cuz.”
    “Why were you out at three a.m.?”
    “I was—”
    “Just hangin’.”
    “That straight, Pellam.” He said to his homies, “Let’s get a game up.” They disappeared toward an alley, happy as ten-year-old boys the world over.
    Pellam pushed through the squeaking door.
    Carol looked up at him from the desk. Her wan smile faded as soon as she saw his expression.
    “Hi,” she said.
    “Howdy.”
    “Sorry I’ve been so hard to get a hold of,” she said. “We’ve been busy as hell here.” The words were leaden.
    Silence. Motes of dust floated between them. Amoeba, caught in the brutal light.
    “All right,” she said at last. “I didn’t call because I got scared. It’s been a long time since I got involved with somebody. And my history with men hasn’t been so great.”
    Pellam crossed his arms. He looked down at what Carol was working on, a stack of papers. Government forms. They seemed overwhelmingly dense and complicated.
    Carol sat back in her chair. “This isn’t about that, is it?”
    “No.”
    “So?”
    “I just heard a few things I was curious about.”
    “Such as?”
    “The day of the fire you were asking about me.”
    The Word. On the street.
    “Hey, a cute guy, wearing cowboy boots. Sure, I was asking.” She laughed but she couldn’t bring the levity off. Her hands rose to her pearl necklace then continued up to her glasses and compulsively kneaded the