In less than 1 minute, Roy Washington would witness a murder. He was parked on 122nd Street, slumped down in the back seat of his glistening, jet black, wide-bodied Mercedes sedan. The car was just 3 weeks old, a testament of success, however earned. And it gave the streets a message: this particular man came up . . . he scored, he’s winning. The streets were always watching cats like Roy Washington.

 

It was 9:30, early for a Friday night, when ballers, hustlers and players—Roy considered himself all of the above—were still deciding whether to live it up, or keep it on the low, play it small and intimate. This was what was on Roy’s mind just now; maybe he’d take Asondra downtown to The Five Spot to catch something jazzy . . . he could swing across the East River and show her off at SugarHill in Brooklyn, or at Manhattan Proper in Queens . . . or he could bring her pretty-ass uptown to Club Carib, the swanky spot in New Rochelle. But then, of course, there was always the usual circuit here in Harlem, The Rooftop, The Cotton Club, Perk’s or the Lenox Lounge. Roy let these ideas digest as he soaked into his soft, black-leather seats. There was more room to stretch out here in the back seat. And besides, the total impact of his dope hi-fi system touched him better back here. It was as if his car had become an intimate lounge in itself; a place for a man to think while he waited for his woman to get her hair done.

 

The Quiet Storm was pre-empted on Friday and Saturday nights so that the party music could butter up the minds of black folks, perhaps directing them to this club or that with those so-called “live broadcasts.” The infamous “live broadcast”; it could be a radio personality standing in the corner of a club, 4 or 5 early birds with him, all of them making noise into a cell phone to simulate a much larger crowd. Indeed, a larger crowd would inevitably come, lured in by that very charade they heard over the radio airwaves.

 

The tricks they play on the radio, Roy told himself, wishing he had a piece of that scam along with those of his own. He was inspired to change the mood and reached from his relaxed position to feed a CD into the sound system. You could never go wrong with Anita Baker’s Greatest Hits. And that was just the CD Roy picked. He liked how the mellow-voiced soulstress worked the scatting into the rhythm and blues.

 

“Bah-bah—bah—bwee,

 

bah bah—bah—bwoo,

 

bah bah—bah—boo—yeah.”