Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

gas if he heard a shot ring
     out. It was a one-lane road, cars parked on both sides, and there was a little Toyota in front of the truck that he'd just
     have to roll over. Wendell started barking and then Snowden couldn't think straight, told him to shut it, please just shut
     up. When Snowden looked back in the mirror, Lester was gone. The driver still sat in his white Taurus, wiping the sweat from
     off the top of his bald pink head, his other hand dialing a cellphone.
    "Drive to 345 East 117th Street. Between Park and Lex." Wendell stopped barking. Snowden jumped, but when he turned and saw
     Lester sitting at his right he played it off like he was adjusting his seat. Snowden pulled out halfway into the intersection
     before checking to see if the light was green. In the rearview mirror, the white car screeched into a right and was gone.
    "These real estate agents from downtown, they have no ethics, no morals. He thought he was going to ghost us, cherry pick
     some new properties for his clients downtown. Just an opportunist. There's no love there." The explanation was unsolicited
     and pretty unwanted. Snowden's only desire was to drive, to get to fresh air to cancel out Wendell again.
    "My man, you hungry? You need some breakfast before we get busy today?" The affection, concern, Snowden didn't for a moment
     think Lester was talking to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Snowden was almost sure he saw Wendell nodding yes. Lester
     reached in the brown paper bag just as Snowden was stopping at the next red light and removed his weapon from it: a shiny
     glazed cruller, already bitten into. Lester ripped another bite away, pulled the piece out of his mouth and threw it to his
     dog. Wendell ate it in desperate, choking gulps, immediately begging for more.
    The apartment building was much like Snowden's own, a four-story tenement with kids and debris blowing around outside. From
     the look of the block, its narrow street of renovated townhouses, the shining doorknobs and newly stripped doors of the recent
     arrivals, Snowden knew that this was the building they all looked over at and wished they could blow up.
    The only buildings in the world dirtier than New York City tenements didn't count because they were made from dirt itself.
     Floors, ceilings, and walls encrusted in thick, multilayers of scum, the product of a century of tenants too busy and exhausted
     to take care of anything beyond their own apartment doors, a testament to supers who were so in name only. That's why this
     building looked so dramatically different inside, why Snowden's neck rotated from awe. It was simply clean.
    Lester on its pale white marble stairs, hand on the freshly painted rail, turned to see the frozen figure behind him.
    "You look shocked. This is what it's supposed to look like." Lester kept climbing, his voice reverberating in his wake. "This
     is Horizon property now. You're looking at the new Harlem."
    "What's up with it? We upping the rent?" We. Always use first-person plural when you refer to Horizon, a habit encouraged since training day. For Snowden, a lifelong I ,
     it was more uncomfortable than wearing the banana outfit. It said, Erase the border between your own objectives and that of the company, loose your individuality in the sentiment of the many.
    "Rent stabilized. Even if we wanted to up the rent, we can only do it by the allotted citywide percentage for the year, understand?
     Even on new tenants, we can only raise it fifteen percent of the existing rent." His suit was the color of dried roses, his
     shirt and tie variations of lighter petals. Lester wore many suits but was always a champion of scorned colors. "Even if random
     evictions were legal, we still wouldn't make money off of them. But see, it's not about the money." If they said it wasn't
     about the money, they were either lying or they wanted something even more valuable from you, Snowden thought. Dreams, time-shares,
     God, whatever they were pushing,