Authors: DC Noir
George Pelecanos (13 page)
Asad
waited, holding the c-phone out from his face. Gehdi and Nadif swiveled their
heads back and forth, searching the alley.
They
expectin' Santy Claus?
A third crackle.
Asad replied and stowed
the c-phone away in the briefcase. He said something to the two goons and the
three began walking toward Solomon.
They
gonna hit you? Hurt you today?
Solomon
got
a tightness
in his chest. How it had been came
back to him like it had every day since.
Curled up on the alley bricks.
Crying and slobbering and puking.
Waiting for the goons to
swing another steel-capped oe.
They
had grunted with the effort and they had cursed Solomon because beating a man
while he was down was hard work and it made them sweat and they blamed him for
that.
He
lowered his head and pretended to doze. Through slitted eyelids, he saw the
shoes approach, then pass.
"Not
today," he whispered to Voice. "Not today."
As
soon as he thought it safe, he lifted his eyes and followed the three Somalis
approaching Ngame's stand.
And
along Wisconsin, the other vendors watched.
Ngame
saw them cross Wisconsin. He turned and busied himself tightening a C-clamp. He
started counting silently. At nine, he heard the sliding scuffle of shoe
leather on the sidewalk behind him.
"I
need a decision," he heard Asad say.
He
didn't turn, but continued fiddling with the clamp.
"You
got mine," he said, "I don't need a partner."
"Every
businessman needs a partner. Suppose you get sick?"
"I
am healthy."
A
twisting, tearing at his shoulders, and his elbows were pinned behind him as he
was spun around to face Asad.
Gehdi
stood to Asad's right, and Nadif held him tight, the goon's sour breath on his
neck.
"You
may be healthy," Asad whispered, smiling, "but men have accidents."
Gehdi
dropped his hand into his jacket pocket.
Ngame
flexed his knees and sagged, loosening Nadif's grip. Then with a violent burst,
he straightened up. He raised his heavy boot and brought it down with all his
strength on the top of Nadif's foot. He felt bones grind as Nadif's arch
collapsed.
Nadif
was still screaming as Ngame swung his foot forward. His toe caught Gehdi in
the crotch, lifting him off the pavement. Gehdi gasped. His hand flew out of
his pocket. A switchblade clattered to the sidewalk.
Almost
casually, Ngame clenched Asad's collar with one hand, twisting it tight around
his neck. Stooping slightly, he scooped up Gehdi's switchblade. He held it up
before Asad's bulging eyes. He pressed the release. Asad stared hypnotically as
the silver blade flicked open. Ngame slammed Asad up against a lamppost and
brought the blade against the Somali's throat just below the Adam's apple.
Gehdi
lay curled on the sidewalk clutching his balls, and Nadif, sobbing, stood on
his undamaged foot, hanging on to a parking meter.
In
a swift motion, he pulled the blade away from Asad's throat, cocked his arm,
and brought the knife forward in a stabbing motion.
Asad
let out a high-pitched scream. The crotch of his trousers darkened.
A
fraction of an inch from Asad's ear, Ngame drove the knife into the lamppost,
snapping its blade.
"You're
right," Ngame said to Asad in his best BBC voice, "men have accidents."
The
rest of the morning, Solomon watched Ngame at his stand. The Nigerian went
about his business as though nothing had happened. Asad and his goons had
disappeared into the storefront. The other vendors in sight of Ngame's corner
were careful not to be seen paying attention, but it seemed to Solomon they
moved like men tiptoeing around a sleeping beast.
Around
3:00, Solomon, eyes half-closed, was drowsing in his canvas deck chair. For
seconds, he paid no attention to the car that pulled up to the curb by Ngame's
stand, until the driver-side door opened and the black cop got out.
Oh
shit, Voice said.
Solomon
ignored Voice and sat up to get a better view of the cop and Ngame.
"You
already find out who killed Skeeter?" Ngame asked.
Jose
Phelps picked up a pair of Ray Ban knockoffs and examined them. "Not yet."
"Those
are ten dollars."
Jose
put the shades back, taking care to line them up just
"Little
while ago, we were over at Eastern Market," he said. "Buzz was
,
you had a run-in with Asad."
"News
travels fast."
Jose
didn't say anything but left the question on his face.
Ngame
shrugged.
"A discussion.
A business
proposition."
"You
know," Jose threw in, "DEA's interested in him." Ngame nudged the shades
Jose had held. "That's good. I'm not."
"You
ever thought to
moving
somewhere else?"
Ngame
gave Jose a hard look. "I have been here almost ten years. I am somebody
here."
Jose
picked up the Ray Ban knockoffs again. This time he tried them on. He leaned
forward to check himself out in a small mirror hooked to the stand. He angled
his face one way, then the other.
"Absolutely
Hollywood," Ngame said.
Jose
did another 180 in the mirror and handed over a ten. "You need anything..."
Toward
evening the alley was getting dark. Solomon didn't need a watch to know Ngame
would be closing up in an hour unless business was good. And today business
hadn't been good. Not bad, but not good either. He saw Gehdi come out of Asad
the Somali's store, stand in the doorway, and look down the block toward Ngame.
Gehdi had a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He stood there for a moment as
though listening to a reply, then turned and said something to someone in the
store. He shut the door and made his way across Wisconsin toward the alley.
Solomon slouched in his canvas chair, pulled the American flag he used for a
blanket up under his chin, and pretended to sleep.
Gehdi
passed within a few feet of Solomon, and Solomon watched him disappear in the
darkening alley toward the parking garage. Across the street, Ngame started
disassembling his stand. Solomon began his night critique, judging how Ngame
stowed the bulky handbags into the nylon sacks, taking care to dust each one
carefully before putting it away
Where
Gehdi?
Voice
surprised him. Feeling a flush of irritation and guilt, Solomon realized he
hadn't been paying attention to his alley. If Gehdi was going to bring the
Navigator around, why wasn't he out by now?
Minutes
passed. Ngame was working on the last of the handbags. Solomon squinted down
the alley, trying to pierce the deepening darkness.
What's
that? Voice asked.
"What's
what?
That!
"You
seeing shit," Solomon scolded, but even as he said it something moved, the
slightest shift of black against the deeper black in the shadow of Ngame's van.
And then nothing.
For
a moment, stillness returned to the alley,
then
a
figure crossed the sliver of light coming from between Old Glory and Johnny
Rockets.
Paying
no attention to Solomon, Gehdi walked by and returned to the store.
Solomon
waited a moment or two,
then
slipped down the alley
toward Ngame's van and the parking garage.
When
he got back, Ngame was breaking down his stand, stacking the wire grate
shelving, and bagging the C-clamps. His merchandise was packed away in the
nylon sacks and the blue plastic storage boxes.
Up
the street, Asad came out, followed by Nadif. Nadif walked with a heavy limp.
In one hand, an umbrella he used for a cane.
His other
cluched Gehdi's shoulder.
Asad locked up, keyed the alarm, and the three
made their way toward him.
Solomon
smiled.
One gimpy Somali.
Man gonna remember this day,
long as he live.
The
three passed by him and soon headlights swept the alley as the Navigator came
up the garage ramp. It stopped where the alley intersected 31st, then took a
right toward M Street and disappeared from view.
"Goodbye,
Somalis," Solomon whispered. He got up, folded his flag carefully, and hung it
over one of his Safeway carts. He crossed Wisconsin to stand guard over Ngame's
goods while the Nigerian fetched his van.
It
was 9:30 when Ngame slammed the doors of his van. He palmed Solomon their
customary closing-of-the-day bill.
"
This a
twenty," Solomon said, offering it up.
Ngame
waved it away. "We had a good day today."
"Business
wasn't that good."
Ngame
got into his van and started the engine. He leaned out the window and patted
Solomon on the shoulder. "Business isn't all that makes a good day."
Canal
Road runs northwest out of Georgetown along the Potomac River. Round a bend,
the bright lights fade and it becomes a country road. After a mile, Waverly
Ngame noticed headlights coming up behind him, speeding at first, then taking a
position fifty yards or so behind and hanging in there. He checked his
rearview. The lights behind him belonged to Asad's white Navigator.
And
somebody in the passenger seat had an arm out the window, pointing something at
him.
"Don't
get so close," Asad said. "Drop back some."
Gehdi
eased off the gas. He gave Asad a leer.
"Fried Nigerian."
Asad
laughed and pressed the button of the garage door opener. He imagined the
sequence: the electronic command sent to the door opener's receiver, the
receiver that would shoot thirty-six volts into the blasting cap, the blasting
cap embedded in the quarter pound of C-4 plastic explosive that the magnet held
to the gas tank of the Nigerian's van.
An
hour later, Jose Phelps ducked under the police line tape.
Floodlights
washed out color and turned the carnage two-dimensional: an axle with one wheel
attached, its tire still smoldering, grotesque twists of metal strewn across
the roadway and into the trees, a man's shoe obscenely lined up on the
asphalt's center-stripe, a portion of the owner's foot still in it.
Renfro
Calkins huddled with two of his forensics techs at the far side of the road,
looking into the drainage ditch.
Jose
walked over. "ID?"
Calkins
shook his head. "Gonna have to be DNA. All we gots
is
hamburger." He pointed into the ditch. "That's the largest."
Jose
walked over and looked. It took him several seconds to make out the thing that
had been an arm. "What's that in the hand?"
"Looks
like a switch for a garage door. Best guess, these guys set off a bomb in their
own vehicle."
"How'd
they manage that?"
Calkins
shrugged. "They not gonna tell you, Jose."
Gonna
be a quiet day today.
Solomon
looked down his alley, then across Wisconsin to where the Nigerian was setting
up his stand.
"For
once," he said to Voice, "you got your shit together."
They
called him Bay Ronnie but I don't know why. People in the neighborhood said he
used to live around here but him and his people moved a long time ago. They
said he was mean. Crazy-mean, like he'd rather take a switchblade to you than
talk. He wore shades, a black dobb, Dak slacks or Sansabelts, silk socks, and
Romeo Ballys.
Black as tar, with pure white around the eyes.
He would always come down singing from up Sherman Circle way. On Saturday
morning, the 22nd of August, you could hear that ugly, husky voice: "...It's a
thin liiiine between love and hate/It's a thin line between love and hate..."
Sunday,
the 23rd of August, was a muggy and humid morning. It also marked the last
sermon Reverend Yancey would preach at the old Gethsemane Baptist Church.
Gethsemane had been on that hilltop at Georgia Avenue and Upshur Street for
twentysome years. The church was set to be "
tore
down,"
as all the adults were saying around me.
"It gon' be tore
down by Monday mornin'."
Torn down to make room for a
Safeway.
The church was so small I couldn't see how a big old grocery
store was gonna fit, but I didn't know nuthin' about buildings. I was eight
years old at the time. The youth and senior choirs would sing in a big service
that day. My sister was in the youth choir and my mother taught Sunday school.
We
moved into this two-story house on Crittenden Street between Georgia Avenue and
9th Street in the '50s. There were a couple of white families when we came in,
and everybody was friendly, but they had all left the neighborhood maybe a year
after we moved in. Just as we started to play together, the white kids had to
move someplace else. There were other friends too--Jon, Brian, Mark, and Lisa
Rammelford--who lived around the corner on 9th Street before we arrived, along
with Darryl Watson, a cousin of my sister's friend Joyce, who was around most
of the time.