Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (35 page)
Read Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go Online
Authors: George P. Pelecanos
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Nick Sefanos
Frank nodded. “Mr. Carl’s making the pickup. He’s inside.”
“Let’s do this thing,” said Otis.
“Wait for our boy to open the door,” said Frank. He drew two latex examination gloves from a tissue-sized box and slipped them over the pair he already had on his hands. He tossed the box over his shoulder to the backseat. “Here. Double up.”
Roman Otis raised his right hand, where a silver ID bracelet bearing the inscription “Back to Oakland” hung on his wrist. He let the bracelet slip down inside the French cuff of his shirt. He put the gloves on carefully, then reflexively touched the butt of the .45 fitted beneath his shirt. He caught a glimpse of his shoulder-length hair, recently treated with relaxer, in the rearview mirror. Shoot, thought Otis, Nick Ashford couldn’t claim to have a finer head of hair on him. Otis smiled at his reflection, his one gold tooth catching the light. He gave himself a wink.
“Frank,” said Richard.
“We’ll be out in a few minutes,” said Frank. “Don’t turn the engine over until you see us coming back out.”
“I won’t,” said Richard, a catch in his voice.
The back kitchen door to May’s opened. A thin black man wearing a full apron stepped out with a bag of trash. He carried the trash to a Dumpster and swung it in, bouncing it off the upraised lid. On his way back to the kitchen he eye-swept the men in the Ford. He stepped back inside, leaving the door ajar behind him.
“That him?” asked Otis.
“Charles Greene,” said Frank.
“Good boy.”
Frank checked the .22 Woodsman and the .38 Bulldog holstered beneath his oxford shirt. The guns were snug against his guinea-T. He looked across the bench at his kid brother, sweating like a hard-run horse, breathing through his mouth, glassy eyed, scared stupid.
“Remember, Richard. Wait till you see us come out.”
Richard Farrow nodded one time.
Roman Otis lifted the shotgun, slipped it barrel down into his open shirt, fitting it in a custom-made leather holster hung over his left side. It would show; there wasn’t any way to get around it. But they would be going straight in, and they would move fast.
“Let’s go, Roman,” said Frank.
Otis said, “Right.” He opened the car door and touched his foot to the street.
Praise for George Pelecanos’s Nick Stefanos novels
George Pelecanos is the author of several highly praised and bestselling novels, including, most recently,
The Way Home
and
The Cut
. He is also an independent-film producer, an essayist, and the recipient of numerous writing awards. He was a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for
The Wire
and currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series
Treme
.
The Cut
The Way Home
The Turnaround
The Night Gardener
Drama City
Hard Revolution
Soul Circus
Hell to Pay
Right As Rain
Shame the Devil
The Sweet Forever
King Suckerman
The Big Blowdown
Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
Shoedog
Nick’s Trip
A Firing Offense
Copyright © 1995 by George P. Pelecanos
Reading group guide copyright © 2011 by George P. Pelecanos and Little, Brown and Company
Excerpt from
Shame the Devil
copyright © 2000 by George P. Pelecanos
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company
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www.HachetteBookGroup.com
.
Originally published in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press, June 1995
Back Bay Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The Back Bay Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First eBook Edition: July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-12688-5
