Clockers

For the minimalistic composition, see clocker.

Clockers
1st edition
Author(s)	Richard Price
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Crime novel
Publisher	Harper & Brothers
Publication date	1992
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	0060934980
OCLC Number	45963011
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Classification	PS3566.R544 C56 2001

Clockers is a 1992 novel by American author Richard Price.

The book takes place in the fictitious city of Dempsy in North Jersey. It centers on the workings of a local drug gang and the dynamics between the drug dealers, the police and the community.

Plot

Clockers follows intertwining storylines of low level cocaine dealer Ronald "Strike" Dunham and homicide detective Rocco Klein in the fictional New Jersey city of Dempsey (Which shares many similarities with Jersey City, NJ - where author Richard Price spent extensive time researching the subject matter.) Strike works in the drug organization of Rodney Little, a friendly but violent drug lieutenant of local drug lord Champ. When Rodney Little asks Strike to kill his second in command Darryl and take his position, Strike hesitates. While scoping out Ahab's, the fish restaurant from where Darryl wholesales cocaine, he encounters his drunk brother in a bar across the street, to whom he tells a made-up story about Darryl's abuse of his girlfriend. Victor apparently sees through his story, and suggests that if Strike needs someone killed, he knows "My Man" who could do the job. Strike is surprised by this offer from his law-abiding, working-man brother, and responds noncommittally, thinking him to be just a drunken boast. He is shocked the next day to find that Darryl has been shot dead in the Ahab's parking lot by an unknown assailant.

Rocco Klein and his partner Larry Mazilli are assigned to investigate Darryl's murder. They quickly deduce that Darryl was more than just a restaurant manager. Meanwhile Strike is promoted in Rodney's organization and is introduced to Papi, a Puerto-Rican cocaine wholesaler. Rodney reveals that he has been buying cocaine from Papi and selling it behind Champ's back, without giving him a cut. Strike recognizes that Champ will have them both killed if he discovers their side business, but agrees to participate, believing he has no other choice.

Rodney brings Strike to meet with Champ at his headquarters at the O'Brien housing projects. Rodney brings an undercover police officer who he introduces to Champ as a cocaine supplier, as part his plan to subplot him and take control of the organization. There, Strike encounters Champ's chief violent enforcer, Buddha Hat, a murderous man who cryptically proclaims that Strike is "Victor's brother." Strike takes this to mean that Buddha Hat was Victor's "My Man" and that he had killed Darryl. As Buddha Hat worked for Champ, and Darryl was the previous overseer of Rodney's secret drug sales, Strike assumes that Buddha Hat will realize their treachery and tell Champ, who would have them both killed.

Buddha Hat pays Strike a perplexing visit, where Strike, thinking he is about to be killed, is instead taken to a restaurant and peep show in New York, in a bizarre gesture of friendship by Buddha Hat. Victor gives a full confession to Darryl's murder, but his self-defense story does not match witness accounts and Rocco expects that he is in fact innocent. His investigation begins to lead him to Strike, who he believes is a much more likely murderer than law-abiding Victor. Rocco confronts Strike at his drug corner and forcibly takes him in for questioning several times. Strike goes to meet Papi to pick up the week's cocaine shipment but finds him shot to death. Strike panics, fearing that Champ is on to him and Rodney. He later learns from Rodney that Buddha Hat also went behind Champ's back to take a bit of Papi's profits, and murdered him when he refused to pay.

When Rodney is arrested selling cocaine to an undercover police officer, he believes that Strike has been talking to police and sends his enforcer, Errol Barnes to murder him. Rocco brings in Strike for questioning, again, as well as Victor and his mother, who, already facing an inevitable life sentence, finally reveals that it was him who had committed the murder, in a moment where, hating his difficult life and ungrateful wife, impulsively decided to murder Darryl as Strike had suggested with a gun he had earlier found and kept. Errol Barnes, despite a fearsome reputation for violence, is shot and killed by Strike's panicked young assistant Tyrone, who had been on his way to return Strike's gun after borrowing it out of curiosity. Strike goes free, but local cop Andre "The Giant," who was a father figure to Tyrone, threatens to kill Strike for ruining Tyrone's life unless he leaves Dempsey permanently. The book ends with Strike driving out of Dempsey with his money thinking about where to go.

In other media

In 1995, director Spike Lee adapted the story for the film Clockers. Lee co-wrote the screenplay with Price.