didn't even offer a Gideon bible kept in a warped bureau drawer or on the cracked toilet tank lid. I checked, and I didn't even understand why I bothered to search. Maybe the squall's fury was harrowing enough for me to want to believe in a higher power.
My adopted parents, the Zanes, had just broken up from a nasty divorce instigated by his drunken nights out tomcatting for some strange. They'd reached an irreparable split in their lives, and the man-child inside me cried over it. The white folk had raised me—a black kid—as one of their own. They were caring folk. Amanda baked a mean blueberry buckle, and Phil sneaked into my bedroom to shut off my alarm on school snow days. On the face of it, everything appeared just fine.
Or that's what I told myself every time the emotional issue bit its fangs deep into me. Growing up different was main force that'd shaped me. Nobody else came stamped from the same die as Tommy Mack Zane. An original, he knew his own mind, and he followed it. That’s how I came to be huddled in this motel crib. I got a bout of the jimjams, so I turned on the nightstand radio, and Joni Mitchell warbled her jazz cuts to soothe me. I paced the U-shaped path the previous lodgers had worn in the carpet around the zinc bed.
Then somebody’s knuckles tattooed the door. I froze. Cops charged like a lightning flash through my brain. I hadn't yet ditched my piece used on this last job. I planned to hurl the piece into one of the concrete mixer trucks I'd seen lined up at the air terminal's new wing under construction.
The linchpin evidence, my prints smothering it, guaranteed me a hot date with Old Sparky, or whatever method Joe Law used in this state to execute its Death Rowers. A second flurry of door knocks erupted. The command—"Police! Open up!—hadn't barked out yet. I still packed a few slugs, including the silver one I ate before they ever took me alive.
"Dice? Are you in there, darling?"
The distant, muffled voice asking for "Dice" threw me until it cleared in me that was my current alias. "Who's with you?" I asked her from my dry side of the door.
"What? Nobody is here but me. Check the damn peep."
"I can't. It's gummed up. Where did you go?"
"Out."
"Shit, I know that. Why?"
"I scored us some bud."
"Prove it."
"This is childish, Dice. Just open the door."
"To you, sure, but not to me. Prove it, I said."
"Hurry up. I'm drenched to the bone."
"Where's my damn wallet?"
"Don't fling a fit. It's all right here."
"Except what you spent."
"I couldn't put the bud on my plastic, too."
Now I knew where all her money was going instead of upgrading her transportation. "Who's your dealer then?"
"My roommate Leah sells it. Look, I charged our room on my MasterCard. Why are you being such a shit like this?"
"Because I thought you'd ripped me off."
"That's insulting. I tell you what. I'll dump your god damn wallet out here, and you can walk back to the airport in the morning."
"Wait, I need a minute to think."
"I'm gone unless you let me in. Now."
Hiking on foot back to the air terminal was risky. So I rattled off the brass security chain, and clinked free the deadbolt. The door curved in, swatting me. The driven rain sprayed us until she sloshed into the crib, and I shouldered the door closed. She was a sight, all right. The fabric to her clothes lay plastered against her skin like Jacqueline's wet t-shirt movie scene. That revelation titillated me, except Bunnie was in no playful mood. After she brightened the other lamp, her wide, caramel eyes smoked in anger.
"You better peel out of those wet duds," I said, trying to be helpful.
"What's eating you, Dice?" she asked. "I cowered out there like a drowning rat in the rain and wind."
"You can't be on your toes too much."
"On your toes for what? Are the cops after you? Is that it? Have I taken up with a felon on the run?"
"Ain't nothing like that, baby. I'm the new kid in town, and I don't know anybody to trust. Put yourself in my
My adopted parents, the Zanes, had just broken up from a nasty divorce instigated by his drunken nights out tomcatting for some strange. They'd reached an irreparable split in their lives, and the man-child inside me cried over it. The white folk had raised me—a black kid—as one of their own. They were caring folk. Amanda baked a mean blueberry buckle, and Phil sneaked into my bedroom to shut off my alarm on school snow days. On the face of it, everything appeared just fine.
Or that's what I told myself every time the emotional issue bit its fangs deep into me. Growing up different was main force that'd shaped me. Nobody else came stamped from the same die as Tommy Mack Zane. An original, he knew his own mind, and he followed it. That’s how I came to be huddled in this motel crib. I got a bout of the jimjams, so I turned on the nightstand radio, and Joni Mitchell warbled her jazz cuts to soothe me. I paced the U-shaped path the previous lodgers had worn in the carpet around the zinc bed.
Then somebody’s knuckles tattooed the door. I froze. Cops charged like a lightning flash through my brain. I hadn't yet ditched my piece used on this last job. I planned to hurl the piece into one of the concrete mixer trucks I'd seen lined up at the air terminal's new wing under construction.
The linchpin evidence, my prints smothering it, guaranteed me a hot date with Old Sparky, or whatever method Joe Law used in this state to execute its Death Rowers. A second flurry of door knocks erupted. The command—"Police! Open up!—hadn't barked out yet. I still packed a few slugs, including the silver one I ate before they ever took me alive.
"Dice? Are you in there, darling?"
The distant, muffled voice asking for "Dice" threw me until it cleared in me that was my current alias. "Who's with you?" I asked her from my dry side of the door.
"What? Nobody is here but me. Check the damn peep."
"I can't. It's gummed up. Where did you go?"
"Out."
"Shit, I know that. Why?"
"I scored us some bud."
"Prove it."
"This is childish, Dice. Just open the door."
"To you, sure, but not to me. Prove it, I said."
"Hurry up. I'm drenched to the bone."
"Where's my damn wallet?"
"Don't fling a fit. It's all right here."
"Except what you spent."
"I couldn't put the bud on my plastic, too."
Now I knew where all her money was going instead of upgrading her transportation. "Who's your dealer then?"
"My roommate Leah sells it. Look, I charged our room on my MasterCard. Why are you being such a shit like this?"
"Because I thought you'd ripped me off."
"That's insulting. I tell you what. I'll dump your god damn wallet out here, and you can walk back to the airport in the morning."
"Wait, I need a minute to think."
"I'm gone unless you let me in. Now."
Hiking on foot back to the air terminal was risky. So I rattled off the brass security chain, and clinked free the deadbolt. The door curved in, swatting me. The driven rain sprayed us until she sloshed into the crib, and I shouldered the door closed. She was a sight, all right. The fabric to her clothes lay plastered against her skin like Jacqueline's wet t-shirt movie scene. That revelation titillated me, except Bunnie was in no playful mood. After she brightened the other lamp, her wide, caramel eyes smoked in anger.
"You better peel out of those wet duds," I said, trying to be helpful.
"What's eating you, Dice?" she asked. "I cowered out there like a drowning rat in the rain and wind."
"You can't be on your toes too much."
"On your toes for what? Are the cops after you? Is that it? Have I taken up with a felon on the run?"
"Ain't nothing like that, baby. I'm the new kid in town, and I don't know anybody to trust. Put yourself in my
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