Dominion (106 page)

Clarence showed the tie to Ollie.

“When I did the background check on Leesa,” Ollie said, “I talked to a few of her close friends.” He rummaged through his notes, found a number, and made a call.

“Megan? Detective Ollie Chandler. I spoke to you about Leesa before, remember? Listen, I’ve got another question. Did you ever know about Leesa making a tie?”

“Yeah, sure. We were in the same home ec class. We had a sewing unit. Mrs. Green made all of us sew a tie. Most of us gave them to our boyfriends or our dads. Mrs. Green had some materials somebody donated. Leesa picked an African design, I think.”

“Do you know who she made it for?”

“No,” Megan said. “I assumed it was for her father. But she said it wasn’t. I figured maybe her brother or uncle or somebody, but I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t tell me. It wasn’t like her. She used to tell me everything. Anyway, she really got into that tie. Even worked on it after school.”

Clarence walked into Norcoast’s office complex for their appointment. He caught a cold glance from Jean the administrator and a warm one from Sheila the receptionist. Norcoast invited Clarence into his private office, then grabbed a quick phone call. Clarence reached in his briefcase and removed something. While Norcoast talked and looked out the window, Clarence replaced one eight-by-ten picture on the wall with another. He put the original in his briefcase and closed it. Just then, Norcoast hung up.

“I see you have a picture of the two of us,” Clarence said, pointing at the wall. Norcoast’s brow furrowed. He walked over to inspect the picture.

“Let’s see,” Clarence said, “that was at the Fight Crime rally, wasn’t it? Nice tie you had on. Don’t think I’ve seen it on you since. Actually, I’ve never seen a tie quite like that.”

Norcoast stared at the picture in disbelief.

“Where’d you buy it? The tie, I mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the councilman said weakly. “Maybe Nordstrom.”

“Doesn’t look like any tie I ever saw at Nordstrom. What are those little designs?” Clarence pointed. The tie’s designs appeared much more prominent than Norcoast remembered them. They jumped off the picture.

“And look, the tie’s flipped over here at the bottom,” Clarence said. “Something’s written on it. You can just barely read it. Let’s see, what does it say? ‘From… somebody with love.’ What’s that name?”

Norcoast grabbed the picture off the wall. The muscles beneath his left cheek twitched.

“Hey,” Clarence said, “I’d love to get a copy of that picture. Can I just borrow it and make a copy on your machine?”

“Not right now. Maybe later.” Norcoast clutched the picture frame to his chest. “Listen, Clarence, something’s come up. I can’t meet right now. I’m very sorry. I’ll call you later.” Norcoast ushered him out of the office, quickly closing the door behind him.

Clarence walked out to the reception area and sat down in a chair off to the side. He sat there five minutes. Suddenly the fire alarm went off. Norcoast stuck his head out his door and said to Sheila, “No problem. Don’t worry, just a little accident. I’ve opened my window. No damage.”

A little smoke wafted out of Norcoast’s office. He turned from Sheila and saw Clarence. He quickly closed the door, harder than he intended.

Ollie stood behind Taco Bell and sized up the short wiry young man dressed in an oversized plaid Pendleton shirt. The dark-blue shirt with its long sleeves seemed to envelop him more like a bedsheet than a shirt. Around his neck, hanging outside the flannel shirt, was a black woven cross necklace.

“So, Eddie,” Ollie said, “you’re a Four Trey East Coast Crip, that right?”

“Yeeeah. Four Treys forever, man.”

The gang detectives had told Ollie that Eddie Pearl, street name Picasso, was probably the most experienced graffiti artist—or vandal, depending on one’s perspective—in Portland. He’d come up from L.A. two years ago.

“So, what do you make of this, Picasso?” Ollie pointed to the five lines of blue text on the fence. Manny hovered over the boy’s shoulder as if he were an eager apprentice.

Eddie studied the composition like a master analyzing the work of another master. He looked at it from a distance, then up close. Moments of appreciation were punctuated by moments of puzzlement.

“This be fresh, ’round here anyway.”

“You mean this particular tag?” Ollie asked.

“Yeah, tag’s def. Nobody around here do this tag. But I’m sayin’ the style’s fresh.”

“Style?” Ollie asked.

“Every tagger gots his own style. Like the shape of the letters, you know? Some circles, some squares, some diamonds. Some loopy, some wavy. Printed blocks, those easiest to read.”

“Some of these letters are completely separated,” Ollie said, pointing to the tag. “And some barely touch each other, but a lot of them overlap so much I can’t distinguish the letters.”

“Yeeeah. Hardest be overlapping wavy ones, like these. Problem is, it be a mixed style. See,” he pointed at another piece of graffiti, “this one’s Four Seven Kerby Bloc. It all be backwards, so it’s easy to read. But this one just has
some
letters backwards, and they overlap. It’s wavy. Not a full diamond style. Called half-diamond. See the diamond above the i?”

“Barely,” Ollie said. “Can you translate this piece? In the last line,
P
is for Piru, right? Blood.”

“Yeah. And you know 187.”

“Section 187, California penal code for murder. He’s a Blood killer, so obviously he’s a Crip. But that’s all I can make of it.”

Picasso nodded. “Next line up is Sur.” It looked to Ollie like a single broad letter, but as Picasso ran his finger over it, he could now see a backward
S
with a
u
and
r
stemming from it.

“What’s Sur mean?” Ollie asked.

“Southern California,” Manny said. “It’s Spanish. You see it all the time in Latino graffiti.”

“That’s right. I forgot. But…the guy isn’t Hispanic, right?”

“No way, man,” Picasso said. “He be Crip. Lot of Crips and Bloods pick up stuff from Spic gangs.” He looked at Manny tentatively after saying Spic.

“How about the third line?” Ollie asked, looking at several letters hopelessly overwritten.

Picasso stared long and hard. “Okay, got it.
HC
.
C
’s backwards over the
H
.
”
As soon as he lined it out with his finger, it became obvious, like one of those images you can’t see until someone tells you how to look at it, and then you can’t understand why you didn’t see it all along.

“So what’s HC?” Ollie asked.

“Hoover Crip,” Picasso said. “He be a Hoover.”

Ollie wrote it down.

“Second line be Nine Deuce.”

“Of course,” Ollie said, seeing the backward two over a forward nine. “A Nine Deuce Hoover.” Ollie and Manny exchanged glances. Both were thinking of the SERT officer’s HK53 lost in the L.A. battle with Five Nine Hoovers, an allied set.

“Okay, what’s the first line?” Ollie knew what was often on first lines. If he were a praying man, he’d have been praying right now.

“First line be OG, Original Gangster. Then be his name.”

“His name? What is it?”

“Sniper. No, wait.” Picasso ran his finger over the jumbled mass of lines. “Spider. Name be Spider.”

“Spider,” Ollie said with a gleam in his eye, writing it down. “Now, Eddie, there aren’t any Nine Deuce Hoovers in Portland yet, are there?”

“No way, man. He be from L.A. No doubt.”

“So…you’re telling me the guy who wrote this is an L.A. Nine Deuce Hoover who goes by Spider?”

“That what the soldier say. Art don’t lie,” Picasso said.

“Eddie,” Ollie slapped the master on the back, “it’s all the Taco Bell you can eat, on me.”

Clarence lay sleepless again. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sleep without shutting his eyes. And every night lately, lying in wait for him on the back of his eyelids was a boy whose name he didn’t even know.

Fourteen-year-old Clarence was hanging with Rock and Shorty in Cabrini Green. His father didn’t think they were good influences and told him to stay away from them. So he had to steal away to meet them over by the junkyard, which made the friendship as tasty as forbidden cookies.

“Say, you look at that? Tell me what you see.” Shorty’s voice was young and cocky.

“See a white boy,” Rock said in a steady measured tone, “wanderin’ where he don’t belong.”

Young Clarence followed their gaze. Sure enough, there was a white boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, riding his beat-up red Schwinn, a confused and frightened look on his face.

“I think honky’s wantin’ to get licked,” Rock said.

Before Clarence could say anything, Rock and Shorty were running full out toward the intruder. Clarence looked behind him. No one else was around. He looked ahead to see his friends overtaking the white boy. In an instant he made the decision that would haunt him. He ran to join them. They’d just rough up this boy, teach him a lesson.

The boy lay frozen on the ground. Rock was stretched out on top of him, letting spit dribble from his mouth onto the boy’s forehead.

“What’s wrong, white boy? Too scared to fight the niggas?”

Rock punched him hard in the side. Shorty let loose with a short kick. Unsatisfied with that, he moved back like a field goal kicker and ran at him five feet before he let one loose. Clarence thought he heard ribs crack. The boy choked and grimaced.

After a few more blows, the shellacking got too boring for Rock. He looked at Shorty and Clarence and said, “Let’s take him to the dump.”

When Rock told him he’d urinate in his mouth if he didn’t, the boy marched in front of them like a prisoner of war in the Bataan Death March.

Run, white boy, Clarence kept saying inside himself. He’d seen Rock and Shorty feisty before, but never so mean. He kept thinking what his daddy would say. He knew he should go home or talk the other boys out of it or get help. But he couldn’t do that. These were his friends. This was their neighborhood. White people owned the whole rest of the world. They needed to stay away from here. Besides, Clarence had vivid memories of black boys who’d wandered into white neighborhoods. They’d come back beaten and cut up, sometimes with broken bones, hanging their heads like little whipped dogs, recounting stories of humiliation. Maybe this white boy had beaten up black boys. Maybe he deserved this.