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police car rolled past him, going the wrong way down Butler Street. A second later, another one flew up 15th Street toward Hunting Park, again in the wrong direction.
    “Somethin’ musta happened to a cop,” he mused to himself, “’cause ain’t no way in hell they rollin’ like that for no nigger.”
    Satisfied that they weren’t looking for him, Black went back to retrieve the trash can and walked quickly across Germantown Avenue to Broad Street, his mouth watering and his stomach flipping as he thought about that first hit. As he got closer to Lee’s Chicken, though, he noticed something odd, something that caused him to stop in his tracks. It was a rescue truck. And it was right in back of the house.
    Black knew that no one would call rescue for a piper. If anything, other smokers would shoot through his pockets to see if he had any more dope or any more money. Then they would leave him for dead. And if the cops happened to roll up and he wasn’t dead yet, they would do everything they could to finish the job. If they were nice, they might even lock him up. Or if they were really nice cops, they might take him to the hospital. But rescue?
    Something big had happened in the house. That much was apparent. And Black wasn’t trying to be around anything big. Cops tend to grab anybody and everybody when something big happens. He’d seen it too many times—guys who had never done anything remotely illegal doing life for someone else’s crime. Black wasn’t trying to go out like that. Which meant he’d have to catch Tone on the next go-round. Taking a left, he headed up to Pop Squaly’s, mumbling, cursing, and trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that Pop Squaly’s dope was just as good as Tone’s.
    “I need a blast,” he said in a barely audible grumble.
    A lady coming out of the bar looked at him and said, “Who you talkin’ to?”
    “Do it look like I’m talkin’ to you?” he said, and readjusted the trash can, switching the weight of it from his left to his right side.
    The lady, barely fazed, looked at him and resumed her drunken stumble from the bar next to the barbecue place to the bar up the street.
    Black picked up the pace, walking quickly toward Pop Squaly’s, and watched police cars, one after another, turning left on Hunting Park Avenue. Since they hadn’t stopped, Black knew that he was safe for a while. As long as they were going to help one of their own, he could smoke fifty caps in the middle of Broad Street and the cops wouldn’t care.
    But in spite of his newfound feeling of security, something kept nagging at him, pulling at him like a pinched nerve run amok. The faster he walked, the more intense it became, until it was almost an actual pain pounding against his head. Then, as he dragged the trash can up Pop Squaly’s steps, it hit him. Leroy. Could he have had something to do with what happened in the house?
    It wasn’t like they were friends or anything. People don’t become friends out there. At most, they might become partners. And Leroy—stuttering-ass, crazy-ass Leroy—was one of the best partners Black had ever had.
    You had to be one of the best to bring rescue to a crack house. That’s why Black knew that Leroy had something to do with it. Trouble was, the same instinct that told Black that Leroy had gotten away with doing something in the house was telling him that Leroy wouldn’t be getting away for long.
     
    Leroy looked in the rearview mirror at the police car burning against the median that separated Roberts Avenue from the expressway off-ramp and tried to think of a way out. When he thought he’d figured something out, he spoke quickly.
    “Pookie, when we get up to Wayne Avenue, get out the car and lay down in the street,” he said.
    “Nigger, you must be on ALPO,” Pookie said, rolling her eyes and snapping her neck at the very thought.
    “I said lay down in the street!” Leroy screamed.
    “Ain’t nobody givin’ no orders up in here but