The Reapers

They were on the side of the angels, even if the angels weren't entirely sure that this was a good thing.

The Detective was different. Not that he wasn't a good man; Willie had heard enough about him to understand that he was the kind who didn't like to turn away from another's pain, the kind who couldn't put a pillow over his ears to drown out the cries of strangers. Those scars he had were badges of courage, and Willie knew that there were others hidden beneath his clothes, and still more deep inside, right beneath the skin and down to the soul. No, it was just that whatever goodness was there coexisted with rage and grief and loss.

When Louis relaxed, it was an indication that a threat was at hand and he was preparing to act, as when an archer releases a breath simultaneously with the flight of an arrow, channeling all of the tension into the flighted missile itself.

Perhaps it's true that all men love their fathers, no matter how terrible the things they do to their sons: there is a part of us that remains forever in debt to those responsible for our existence.

He was just thinking aloud, ruling out possibilities by releasing them into the air, like canaries in the coal mine of his mind.

As for dying, he didn't believe that he was frightened of it: the manner of it, perhaps, but not the fact of it. After all, he had reached an age where dying had started to become an objective reality instead of an abstract concept.

But no one on either side ever forgot that the law was white. Justice might be blind, but the law wasn’t. Justice was aspirational, but the law was actual. The law was real. It had uniforms, and weapons. It smelt of sweat and tobacco. It drove a big car with a star on the door. White people had justice. Black folks had the law.

After all, no relationship could function or survive under the burden of total honesty.

Around them, the city moved to its own hidden heartbeat, a rhythm that varied from hour to hour, tied to the movements of the individuals that inhabited it so that sometimes he found it hard to tell if the city dictated the lifestyles of its people, or the people influenced the life of the city.