The Dying Ground Read Online Free PDF

men met Smokey’s gaze. Holly waited until Smokey climbed into his white tricked-out Jaguar convertible before dropping the gun and towel into a paper bag shoved behind a mirror. Patrons eased around us, making their way out, already forming their own versions of our encounter.
    Cutty sighed heavily. “Y’all need to clear on out of here.”
    Holly left without uttering a word. I hesitated before Cutty. I didn’t know what to say, but he said it all. “I’m too old to move my business again.” He dropped into a chair and looked around his vacant shop. Behind him in a faded photograph, the three of us—me, Holly, and Billy, dressed to conquer Little League—smiled into our futures.

    “Smokey, that stupid motherfucker. He kicked this shit off sooner than necessary. There’s enough folks out there willing to believe I did my boy.” Holly looked out at the smoldering pavement.
    I remained silent, my foot pressed to the floor as I gunned down San Pablo to Ashby Avenue in the city of Berkeley. I barely saw red, yellow, or green lights as I tried to pull down images of Billy or Felicia. None came. My mind wouldn’t run the old movies through my wall of pain.
    I was also troubled that I’d stepped over the line in a moment of anger. Despite my friendship with Holly and my insider’s knowledge of the business, I’d managed for twenty-three years to stay free and clear behind the guise of baseball and family.
    “Slow down, man,” Holly warned.
    Holly rode at my side as I raced my Dan Gurney special Cougar through a yellow stoplight. The car was my pride and joy, complete with a steering wheel that tilted to the side when I opened the driver door and original plates. It was black cherry, with gold Zenith wire rims and Vogue tires. The car cost $15,000, my entire four-year college tuition. I’d spent it in one shot, thinking in the back of my mind that my grandfather would cough up the money I needed for school after a long-winded lecture.
    I was wrong.
    He simply looked at the car, told me to hand-wash it with soft rags and get a job. My mouth dropped open in shock, but even then I respected the old man for being so hard-core.
    That little break in enrollment came right on time. It was the same semester I learned about Stuart Tagami, a Japanese-American recruit from southern California’s Mater Dei High School. At the sound of his name, the wind told me he had the power to unseat me. I eliminated the possibility before it happened. I quit.
    I told my coach I wanted to concentrate on school, give baseball a rest for a year, and spend more time with my family. My heart told me the truth. I simply didn’t have the balls to go up against Tagami.
    Holly clutched the door handle as I hit the corner on two wheels. “Damn, man, you even know where the fuck you going?”
    “I gotta find Flea.”
    “Nig, you know how many people looking for that girl? Billy’s boys think she set him up.”
    I realized then he knew more than he’d revealed in the barbershop. Even in dire straits Holly thought with an ice-cold mind.
    “How’d you know?”
    “Word’s already out. They’re gonna kill her.”
    “Flea wouldn’t set Billy up.”
    “Right now people are too mad to remember that. And the police found her purse in the passenger seat with one of her tennis shoes. She was in the car when Billy got shot. The passenger door was wide open. She must’ve run.”
    “Are the police looking for her too?”
    “Them fools don’t know what they looking for. OPD and the Berkeley police stood on the corner fighting over his body. ’Parently he got shot right on the border and both cities was trying to claim him. Rookie shit.”
    “Who got it?”
    “Oakland, but Berkeley was mad as hell ’cause it’s a front-page murder. If you ask me I think they both gonna work it.”
    “How you know all that?”
    Holly shrugged to indicate he’d plucked the information out of thin air. “Just heard it.”
    “But you haven’t heard where