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“He was shooting blanks!”
—
Nearly three hours later, a grinding sound startled them. The wooden wall that had looked like it could be a dead end started moving, sliding to the side like the one under the ministry’s row house.
Light flooded into the dark tunnel.
Hooks squinted as his eyes adjusted enough to see Cross quickly get up from the plastic crate and then slip through the opening.
Hooks heard DiAndre Pringle’s voice: “What was so funny, Rev? The guys said they heard you all the way upstairs. Ugh. And what the hell is that smell?”
“Tell you later,” Cross replied. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Rev.”
“Then let’s get upstairs.”
“C’mon, Ty,” Pringle called.
Hooks paused a moment to let them get a head start, then went through the opening.
On the other side of the panel was another basement, packed with shelving and cardboard boxes carrying everything from potato chips to Tastykakes to cases imprinted with VIKTOR VODKA—SIX (6) 750-MILLILITER BOTTLES in large red Cyrillic-like lettering. Hooks, who drunk cheap liquor, knew that, despite the genuine-looking “Imported Russian Spirits,” the small print on the back of the clear plastic bottles, also in red Cyrillic-like lettering, stated that the cheap booze had been made in a Kensington distillery.
There were also cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans stacked next to cases of forty-ounce bottles of Colt 45 malt liquor. The latter was a favorite of Hooks’s—he liked to call it “liquid crack”—because it was beer brewed with more sugar to create six percent alcohol for a stiffer, and cheaper, kick.
He watched Pringle and Cross disappear up the back stairs.
As Hooks passed one stack, and no one could see, he grabbed a bottle and stuffed it in the belly pocket of his hoodie.
Need this to help me calm down.
—
The back stairs led up to the street-level floor that was the bodega.
The top of the stairs opened into the back storeroom, which Hooks saw had a half-bath with a filthy toilet and sink—its door was open, the light burning—and on the opposite side of the room a second staircase leading up to the next level.
Hooks started to head for the half-bath, but Cross pointed to the staircase.
“No, use the one upstairs,” he said. “Follow me. But be quiet!”
After ascending the second set of stairs, Hooks saw that the next level was a full two-bedroom apartment. It had a living room area with a dirty gray fabric couch and a fairly new flat-screen television, a small kitchen with a wooden table and four chairs, and a single full bathroom.
“In there!” Cross said, pointing into the bathroom as he headed for one of the two windows that overlooked North Twenty-ninth Street.
Cross, standing to the side of the window, carefully pulled back the outer edge of the curtain and scanned the street.
A single marked police cruiser was parked in front of the mission, its overhead red-and-blue lights pulsing. Maybe a dozen uniformed police officers were milling about.
“There’s only the one car,” Pringle said. “That Sergeant Payne said there’d be one there until you turned up. Dead or alive, he said.”
“Really? We can use that,” Cross said, turning to look at him. “And what did you tell our Public Enemy Number One about what happened?”
“Like you said: not a thing. Let them have a look around—they said they were going to even if I didn’t—but then I didn’t say anything. And they found nothing.”
“Good job. You bring your computer pad?”
“Yeah, and I already got the next one set up—asterisk-MarchForRevCross—with the Liberty Bell labeled BEATDOWNTHEMAN on the Philly News Now website.” He paused. “But there’s something you got to know about the rally. Here. Wait. Hear it from Smitty, Rev.”
