Carmine drove out to Miami Shores. There was a potential Heart working a bar off Park Drive which was popular with the rich old men who were members of the nearby country club. They'd go there after playing a few holes of golf. Carmine didn't understand golf. It wasn't a sport to him but a status thing white folks did once they hit a certain age or income bracket or both. Hitting a ball around and taking a leisurely stroll to where it had landed so you could hit it again-what was the whole damn point of that?
He drove down a pitch-black street where the lights were busted and all the houses were derelict and boarded up. Some had been demolished and were just piles of rubble surrounded by wire fencing. Desolate palm trees tilted over the road like drunks, their trunks hacked, drilled and graffitied, their leaves droopy and dirt-coated. He turned into another street where all the buildings had been levelled. The road was coated with thick dust. It reminded him of a picture he'd seen of Hiroshima after the bomb had hit it, nothing standing. All over Miami construction companies were blowing up or knocking down old buildings and then just leaving the mess right there instead of clearing it up and reconstructing.
Suddenly a car pulled out in front of him and he hit the brakes. He wasn't wearing his belt so the jolt threw him hard against the steering wheel and he smacked his forehead on the windshield.
'Motherfucker!' he yelled and punched the horn. The offending car drove off regardless.
'You still drive like an idiot,' a familiar voice said behind him. He turned around and saw the faint outline of someone in the back seat.
'Solomon!' Carmine hadn't noticed anyone when he'd got in the car after the ceremony, nor the whole time he'd been driving. 'How did you-how long you bin in here?'
'I get around,' he said. 'Keep driving.'
Carmine set off down the road.
'Put on your seatbelt,' Solomon said, his voice still the same, a clear, forced whisper, his words hollowed out and filled with silence.
Carmine plugged in the belt. He felt his boss's stare bouncing back at him from the rearview mirror, even though he couldn't see his eyes, let alone his face.
'Keep your eyes on the road. Concentrate,' Solomon said.
'Where we goin'?'
'Wherever you are.'
'I'm workin'. Got a possible Heart lined up.'
'A Heart? That's good. We need more of the high-class ones, less of the low,' Solomon replied.
'I hear that,' Carmine said. 'I'm doin' my best out here, you know?'
'Your best at what?' Solomon asked.
'My best at what I do, Solomon,' Carmine answered, mouth drying, a little tremor in his voice. He hoped Solomon hadn't found out about his and Sam's side project. They'd been so damned careful.
'How's your mother?'
'She's good.' Carmine searched the mirror quickly, but all he saw was a silhouette. He hadn't been face to face with Solomon in five or six years at least. They always met like this, in dark or shadowy places when Carmine least expected it and not often. Carmine had heard that Solomon had had extensive facial reconstruction, that he'd bleached his skin close to white and wore his hair straight and long, that he was so unrecognizable you could pass him on the street without knowing who he was, and that he used doubles and soundalikes to fool his enemies. Carmine wasn't really sure he wasn't talking to an impersonator right now.
'Send her my regards.'
'I will.'
'Take a left here.'
He turned onto North East 101st Street and drove on for a short while.
'Pull over after the Cordoba there.'
Carmine parked in front of a black Chrysler. The road was empty.
'I heard about that cop who assaulted you. We're looking into it.'
'It's no big deal,' Carmine spoke to the mirror. A sliver of stray light coming from the street had fallen across Solomon's mouth. It was bullshit what they'd said about him bleaching his skin; he'd probably started the rumour himself. He was into that-'misinformation' he called it.
'It is a big deal.' Solomon smiled.
And then Solomon licked his lower lip and Carmine saw what had always freaked people out. It wasn't something Solomon let everyone and anyone see, but it was the one thing about him that left the deepest impression, usually to the detriment of his other features. People who'd seen him went on and on about his eyes, their luminous quality, the way they looked through you, the way they saw your secrets, but none of them had ever seen Solomon Boukman's tongue. It was forked, split in two from the middle out, with its tips splayed and pointed and curved slightly downward, like two small pink talons. Carmine remembered when his mother had done that to him, sliced the thing down the middle on a butcher board with a knife. Solomon hadn't even flinched.
'You take care now, Carmine.'
'You too, Solomon.'
Solomon opened the door quietly and slid out of the car and made his way towards the Cordoba. As he walked he was slowly absorbed by the darkness, before disappearing into it completely.