Authors: DC Noir
George Pelecanos (12 page)
I
sat on the floor in the laundry room in my nightgown and stared at that doll
and it stared back at me and its eyes weren't crazy at all, not one bit. It
knew the score. It knew that one of these nights I'd hear the noise of the
Wheelchair Bandit's keys and hear the panting breath of that pit bull and my
family would never get clear, ever.
Unless.
I
put every screw back in as tight as I could get it. I worked the flathead until
my knuckles ached. A little bit of residue had settled into the gap where the
doll's head had separated from its neck; I blew every last speck of it out.
Then I collected the doll and myself and found the back door key and let myself
out onto the deck. I didn't bother to get my slippers. I had to get that thing
out of the house.
The
lonely streetlight by the storage units shed an orange glow that just reached
the spot where I'd found her. I could see the dark circle on the ground where
Juanita had bled her life out with only an empty doll for company. I could see
the gap in the bricks where Dani had found the thing I held in my hands.
I
set that hateful thing back in the darkness where my daughter had found it and
told myself I didn't hear the jangle of keys, the dog panting right behind me.
I told trouble I didn't want any part of it. Nobody does, when you think hard
about it. Isn't that the truth?
Solomon's
alley parallels M Street, Georgetown's main drag. Running behind Johnny
Rockets, Ben & Jerry's, Old Glory Barbecue, and the Riggs Bank, the alley
connects Wisconsin Avenue on the west to 31st Street one block east.
Battered
blue dumpsters line the alley. Solomon had puzzled over the dumpsters for
several years. Finally, he'd decided that their BFI logo stood for big fucking
incinerators. That job done, he'd taken on thinking out the likely origins of
the five ancient magnolia trees that shaded the stretch of alley where he
parked his two Safeway carts.
On
this Tuesday morning in September, he sat in his folding canvas deck chair,
part of him pondering the magnolias while another part got ready for his day
job, watching the Nigerian. At 10:00, like clockwork, the white Dodge van
pulled up across Wisconsin at the corner of Prospect, by Restoration Hardware.
"Hello,
Nigerian," Solomon whispered. He settled back to watch the sidewalk come alive.
Each morning's setup was a ballet, a precisely choreographed routine, and
Solomon was a discriminating critic.
Most
mornings the performance went well: every move efficient, rhythmic,
smooth
. Some mornings it didn't: some mornings everything
fell apart in a cranky series of busted plays.
The
driver eased the van forward so its front bumper toed the white marks on the
pavement. He switched off the ignition and got out to go round to the back.
Waverly
Ngame was a big man. Two-fifty, six feet and a couple of inches, Solomon
figured.
His skin blue-black...shin...like the barrel of a .38.
First
out, a long rectangular folding table, the kind you see in church basements.
Ngame locked the legs open. With his toe and wood shims, he worked around the
table until it rested solid on the uneven brick sidewalk.
He
disappeared into the van and came out with racks of white plastic-coated
wire-grid shelving under both arms and a grease-stained canvas bag in his left
hand.
In
swift, practiced motions, he picked the largest of the shelves and braced it
upright on the side of the table facing the street. With one hand he held the
shelf, with the other he reached into the canvas bag and came out with a large
C-clamp. Twirling it with sharp snaps of his wrist, he opened the jaws just
enough to slip over the shelf and the table edge. He tightened the clamp, and
moved to repeat the process on the other side of the table.
More
shelving and more C-clamps produced a display stand.
Now
the van disgorged Ngame's merchandise in large nylon bags and sturdy blue
plastic storage boxes. Soon, Gucci and Kate Spade handbags hung alluringly from
the vertical shelving while Rolex watches and Serengeti sunglasses marched in
neat ranks across the top of the church-basement folding table.
He
slow today, said Voice.
"He
did
good
," Solomon contradicted. He didn't want to
give Voice shit. He did
that,
give Voice any slack,
Voice start up.
Voice need
his pills? Solomon tried to
remember the last time he trucked to the clinic,
then
gave it up. Long as it was only one Voice, he could handle it. It only got bad
when he had to put up with the whole goddamn family yelling and screaming,
scrambling things inside his head.
Ngame
climbed into his van. That was Solomon's cue. He got out of his chair and
walked to where the alley ran into Wisconsin. There, he could keep a closer eye
on Ngame's stand.
Ngame
eased the van across Wisconsin and into the alley, waving to Solomon as he
passed by. He pulled the van into a slot by the florist shop on 31st Street
where he had a deal with the manager. Locking the van, he walked back up the
alley toward Solomon.
"Nobody
bother the stand, Waverly."
Ngame
palmed Solomon a folded five.
"A good day, Solomon."
As
a boy in Lagos, Ngame had learned his English listening to BBC. He sounded like
a Brit announcer except that he had a Nigerian's way of softly rounding his
vowels and stressing the final syllables of his sentences.
Solomon
shook his head. "Watch yourself today."
Ngame
gripped Solomon's shoulder.
"Voice
tell
you that?" he asked. He searched Solomon's face
with clinical curiosity.
Ngame's
concern irritated Solomon.
"Hunh!
Voice
don't
know shit," he said crossly.
"Solomon
telling you."
Something
passed behind Ngame's eyes. He looked serious. "You hear anything?"
"Just
feel," Solomon whispered to keep Voice from hearing, "just feel."
Ngame
smiled. "You are a belt-and-suspenders man, Solomon."
Solomon
pouted and tucked the five away. "You don't have belt and suspenders, Waverly,
you lose your ass."
Ngame
took that in with a laugh. He squeezed Solomon's shoulder, then turned and made
his way across Wisconsin.
In
the street by Ngame's stand, a crow worried at the flattened remains of a
road-killed rat.
And
down the block from the stand, Solomon saw two men get out of a maroon Crown
Vic.
One black, one white.
Both big.
Both cops.
With
a little finger, Ngame made a microscopic adjustment, poking a pair of
sunglasses to line them up just so with its neighbors. He didn't look up from
putting fine touches to his display.
"Detectives Phelps and Kearney.
Good morning, sirs."
"How's
business, Waverly?" Jose Phelps asked.
Ngame
gave the sunglasses a last critical look,
then
turned
to face Jose and Frank. He smiled a mouthful of perfectly straight
glistening teeth.
"This
is America!" Ngame exploded with exuberance. A-mare-uh-CUH! "Business is always
splendid!" A wave of his large hand took in the sidewalk. "One is free to sell
and free to buy...buy and sell." He caressed a handbag. "This purse, for
example--"
Jose
pulled Ngame's string. "Mr. Gucci gets his cut?"
Ngame
got the tired look of a long-suffering teacher with a slow student.
"Detective Phelps!
Do you suppose this is a real Gucci
purse?" He swept a hand over the watches.
"Or that these are
real Rolexes?"
Jose's
eyes widened. "They aren't?"
"And
do you suppose that any of these good people who come to my stand believe they
are buying real Guccis or real
Rolexes?"
Jose
opened his eyes wider.
Ngame
spun up more. "And do you suppose that my customers could buy a real Rolex?"
"Oh?"
Jose said, egging him on.
"So
who is hurt?" Ngame was deep into it now, eyes wide in enthusiasm, hands held
out shoulder-high, palms up. "Not Mister Gucci! Nor Mister Rolex! As a matter
of fact, Mister Gucci and Mister Rolex ought to be pleased with me! Yes,
pleased! My customers have learnt good taste here at my stand." Ngame's chin
tilted up. "When they get wealthy, they'll buy the real Gucci and the real
Rolex."
"Like
Skeeter Hodges," Frank Kearney said.
Ngame
gave Frank a heavy-lidded somber look. "He didn't buy here. He kept the real
Mister Rolex in business."
"What's
the talk?" Jose asked.
Ngame
scanned the sidewalk. He did it casually, but he did it.
"Conjecture?"
Con-jec-TURE?
Another glance, this time across the street.
"The Puerto Ricans say it was the Jamaicans. The Jamaicans tell me it was
the Puerto Ricans. And the American blacks"--Ngame shrugged--"they all point
their fingers at one another."
"No
names?" Frank asked.
Ngame
shook his head. "No pretender to the throne. But then again, Detective Kearney,
it was only last night."
Ngame
paused a beat,
then
came up with a watch in his hand,
gold-gleaming in the morning sun.
"A Rolex President?
I will give a discount."
Solomon
watched the two cops get in their car and leave. In the street the crow
continued working on the dead rat.
"You
watch yourself today, Waverly," he whispered, and swung his gaze along the
alley, past Ngame's van, toward 31st Street.
Motherfucker's
runnin' late. Voice came up inside Solomon's head, peevish, accusing.
"He
be
along," Solomon told Voice, "he be along."
When?
As
though on cue, tires squealed. A white Navigator roared in off 31st. Sprays of
gravel ricocheted off dumpsters. Partway down the alley the Navigator turned
right and disappeared into the Hamilton Court garage.
"See?"
Solomon whispered to Voice.
Moments
later, Asad the Somali appeared, coming up the ramp carrying a large brief
case. A tall, thin man, he had a snaky, boneless way of moving. His
tight-fitting yellow suit had a long jacket with five buttons and his skin was
a light cocoa and his black hair lay slicked in thinning waves against his
skull.
As
usual, Asad's two goons flanked him.
Gehdi and Nadif.
Solomon had decided they were brothers. Maybe twins, whose orangutan mother had
fallen out of an ugly
ree
.
Two
weeks ago, Asad had come to Georgetown and leased a dingy storefront, paying
cash. Solomon knew that storefront. A single window displayed garish men's
clothes. The display had never changed. For years, players came and went. But
he'd never seen any of them wearing those clothes. That shit only fools or
Somalis would wear. Place never had sold anything legal. The Somali wasn't
going to start now.
Asad
didn't waste time setting up his network. He and his goons started with the
street vendors. The vendors signed on to buy watches, sunglasses, and handbags
from Asad. Asad gave his new partners discounts on the junk. C-phones came with
the deal. In return, Asad got a cut on the profits and he would know what was
going on the streets. All the vendors had bought in except the Nigerian.
That
first day, one of Solomon's carts had been sticking partway out into the alley.
Gehdi misjudged his clearance and scraped the Navigator's fender.
Asad
had stood there and watched with his hard black marble eyes while Gehdi and
Nadif punched Solomon to the ground then kicked the shit out of him. They threw
his carts out into the middle of Wisconsin Avenue. Things he'd collected, his
precious things. The Nigerian had saved some, but the rest, his clippings, his
notebooks,
they'd been swept away with the street trash.
He'd
been beaten before.
But never in his alley.
That they
had done those things to him there shamed him. The alley had provided for him,
and when danger came, he had been unable to defend the alley in return.
He
gonna make the call?
"Sure
he is." Voice didn't know its ass from apple butter sometimes.
Looking
past Solomon and toward Ngame's stand, Asad reached into the briefcase and
pulled out a fat c-phone/walkietalkie. Flipping it open, he held it in front of
his face.
Solomon
saw Asad's lips move. A second or two passed and Solomon heard one crackling
reply, then another.
"One
more," he said to Voice.