Bad Night Is Falling by Gary Phillips

Dexter Grant. Originally, the establishment had belonged to a cop buddy of Grant’s, also retired. The buddy used the money to go to Burma. He’d gone there with some other ex-law enforcement and military types to hunt for some supposedly stolen caches of Chinese gold. Wisely, Grant hadn’t gone along. The former owner of Continental Donuts and his expedition were never heard from again.
    Monk’s mother had also been an influence in his decision to buy the shop.
    â€œYou got to have property, boy. Black folks been struggling and dying for hundreds of years because of land, son. You ain’t never without something to tide you through the bad times when you have a grant deed with your name on it. Especially if it’s earning you an income,” his mother, a nurse, had advised him. “Why you think I been keeping up the taxes on that plot we got down in Mound Bayou, near Clarksdale? We’ve had that family farm since right after slavery.”
    What little profit the damned place showed generally went for salaries and expenses, but he liked being a donut magnate. As he walked in, Elrod the giant was fixing one of the fryers. Monk went into the reinforced room where he kept hard copies of his files. He punched in Kodama’s number, and the receiver was picked up immediately.
    â€œYes, who is this,” the voice snapped.
    â€œMonk. Is Jill there?”
    â€œHow’d you get this number?”
    Fucking Mitchell. “I said this was Monk, you know who I am.”
    â€œOh yes, I believe I’ve talked with you before,” he replied, feigning only a fleeting recognition. “The judge is busy right now, I’ll tell her you called.”
    The word “called” already sounded distant as the receiver was replaced in its cradle.
    â€œAsshole,” Monk cursed, backslapping the phone. Anxious, and with nothing else to do, he swept and straightened up the room. He finished, taking the files on the members of the Ra-Falcons with him.
    Elrod the invincible donut shop manager resided in the kitchen. The former heister was six feet eight inches, three hundred and twenty-five trim pounds of prison-tested muscle. His squared-off head topped shoulders as wide as an aircraft carrier’s deck, and three earring studs, in gold, silver, and turquoise, were punched into the rim of his left ear.
    â€œChief,” Elrod greeted him. He was instructing a new employee on the fineries of making raised chocolate donuts just so. “This is Andre, he started yesterday.”
    The young black man, he couldn’t have been over twenty-three, looked in Monk’s direction but said nothing. He promptly returned his focus to rolling the dough. His coal black jeans were long in the leg and frayed at the heels of his white Pumas. He wore a heavily starched blue work shirt buttoned at the sleeves and at the collar. His hair was shaved very close to me scalp on the sides, with a modicum more along the top.
    â€œDre’s been in CYA,” Elrod said, confirming what Monk had been speculating. “He’s the little brother of an old pardner of mine. Said he wants to do right, ain’t that so?”
    Dre nodded quickly that indeed it was so, and began to pull little plugs off the dough and roll them into balls.
    â€œRighteous,” Monk responded and moved toward the front. If the kid didn’t work out, and especially if he tried to run a scam, he’d have to deal with the big fella. A fate to make grown men weak in the knees. The fact mat Elrod could inspire such fear allowed Monk to sleep sound at night.
    Out in the main section were three customers. Gloria was in her MTA bus driver uniform, playing a game of chess in one of the booths with a woman he didn’t recognize. At the counter was Andrade, occasional accountant and periodic binger. A medium cup of coffee and an uneaten French cruller sat before him. He was dressed in a sport coat and open collar, his black