His large walrus gut dug in the steering wheel he held. “Nigga shit,” he said to himself. Tossing the cigarette butt out the window, he turned on Ray Charles and hummed. He kept glancing and checking and rechecking his mirrors as he drove the side streets back home. He pulled his Caddy up the narrow concrete strips of his driveway. In between the concrete strips was a long row of unmowed grass. Tony carried his briefcase out toward the back porch whistling “Midnight Train to Georgia.” He stopped and sniffed hard. Somebody was barbecuing something. He looked up and noticed the soft trail of smoke floating up into the black. Nobody could see inside Tony’s backyard. It was completely covered with vines. The vines and trees grew in one dark, overgrown mass that twitched and screeched loud from the crickets and rats. Tony pried open the back step and lifted the plank up. With Ray Ray and Charles’s money and the rest of the club’s take he had more than eighteen grand in his hand.
