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"You
got a name on the hitter?"

"Nah."
Blood came to my ears and made them
hot. It happened when I got stressed.

"How about the name of the girlfriend?"

I
shook my head. "I'd talk to Rico's mother, I was you. You'd think she'd know
somethin' 'bout the girls her son was runnin' with, right?"

"You'd
think," said Barnes.

"All
I'm sayin' is
,
I'd start with her."

"Thanks
for the tip."

"I'm
just sayin'."

Barnes
sighed. "Look, I've already talked to the mother. I've talked to Rico's
neighbors and friends. We've been through his bedroom as well. We didn't find
any love notes or even so much as a picture of a girl."

I
had the photo of his girlfriend.
Me
and Rico's aunt,
Leticia, had gone up into the boy's bedroom at that wake they had, while his
mother was downstairs crying and stuff with her church friends in the living
room. I found a picture of the girl, name of Flora Lewis, in the dresser
drawer, under his socks and underwear. It was one of them mall photos the girls
like to get done, then give to their boyfriends. Flora was sitting on a cube, with
columns around her and shit, against a background, looked like laser beams
shooting across a blue sky. Flora had tight jeans on and a shirt with thin
straps, and she had let one of the straps kinda fall down off her shoulder to
let the tops of her little titties show. The girls all trying to look like
sluts now, you ask me. On the back of the photo was a note in her handwriting,
said, How U like me like this?
xxoo
, Flora. Leticia
recognized Flora from around the way, even without the name printed on the
back.

"Casings
at the scene were from a nine," said Barnes, bringing me out of my thoughts.
"We ran the markings through IBIS and there's no match."

"What
about a witness?"

"You
kiddin'?
There wasn't one, even if there was one."

"Always
someone knows somethin'," I said, as I felt the car slow and come to a stop.

"Yeah,
well." Barnes pushed the
trans
arm up into park. "I
caught a double in Columbia Heights this morning. So I sure would like to clean
this Jennings thing up."

"You
know I be out there askin' around," I said. "But it gets expensive, tryin' to
make conversation in bars, buyin' beers and stuff to loosen
them
lips..."

Barnes
passed another twenty over the seat without a word. I took it. The bill was
damp for some reason, and limp like a dead thing. I put it in the pocket of my
coat.

"I'm
gonna be askin' around," I said, like he hadn't heard me the first time.

"I
know you will, Verdon. You're a good CI. The best I ever had."

I
didn't know if he meant it or not, but it made me feel kinda guilty,
backdooring him the way I was planning to do. But I had to look out for my own
self for a change. The killer would be got, that was the important thing. And I
would be flush.

"How your sons, detective?"

"They're
good.
Looking forward to playing Pop Warner again."

"Hmph,"
I said.

He
was divorced, like most homicide police. Still, I knew he loved his kids.

That
was all. It felt like it was time to go.

"I'll
get up with you later, hear?"

Barnes
said, "Right."

I
rose up off the bench, kinda looked around some, and got out the Crown Vic. I
took a pull out the Popov bottle as I headed for my father's house. I walked
down the block, my head hung low.

Up
in my room, I found my film canister under the T-shirts in my dresser. I shook
some weed out into a wide paper, rolled a joint tight as a cigarette, and
slipped it into my pack of Newports. The vodka had lifted me some, and I was
ready to get up further.

I
glanced in the mirror over my dresser. One of my front teeth was missing from
when some dude down by the Black Hole, said he didn't like the way I looked,
had knocked it out. There was gray in my patch and in my hair. My eyes looked
bleached. Even under my bulky coat, it was plain I had lost weight. I looked
like one of them defectives you pity or ridicule on the street. But shit, there
wasn't a thing I could do about it tonight.

I
went by my mother's room, careful to step soft. She was in there, in bed by
now, watching but not watching television on her thirteen-inch color, letting
it keep her company, with the sound down low so she could hear my father if he
called out to her from the first floor.

Down
in the living room, the television still played loud, a black-and-white film of
the Liston-Clay fight, which my father had spoke of often. He was missing the
fight now. His chin was resting on his chest and his useless hand was kinda
curled up like a claw in his lap. The light from the television grayed his
face. His eyelids weren't shut all the way, and the whites showed. Aside from
his chest, which was moving some, he looked like he was dead.

Time
will just fuck you up.

I
can remember this one evening with my father, back around '74. He had been home
from the war for a while, and was working for the Government Printing Office at
the time. We were over there on the baseball field, on Princeton, next to Park
View Elementary. I musta been around six or seven. My father's shadow was long
and straight, and the sun was throwing a warm gold color on the green of the field.
He was still in his work clothes, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His
natural was full and his chest filled the fabric of his shirt. He was tossing
me this small football, one of them K-2s he had bought me, and telling me to
run toward him after I caught it, to see if I could break his tackle. He wasn't
gonna tackle me for real, he just wanted me to get a feel for the game. But I
wouldn't run to him. I guess I didn't want to get hurt, was what it was. He got
aggravated with me eventually, lost his patience and said it was time to get on
home. I believe he quit on me that day. At least, that's the way it eems to me
now

I
wanted to go over to his wheelchair, not hug him or nothing that dramatic, but
maybe give him a pat on his shoulder. But if he woke up he would ask me what
was wrong, why was I touching him, all that. So I didn't go near him. I had to
meet with Leticia about this thing we was doing, anyway. I stepped light on the
clear plastic runner my mother had on the carpet, and closed the door quiet on
my way out the house.

On
the way to Leticia's I cupped a match against the snow and fired up the joint.
I drew on it deep and held it in my lungs. I hit it regular as I walked south.

My
head was beginning to smile as I neared the house Leticia stayed in, over on
Otis Place. I wet my fingers in the snow and squeezed the ember of the joint to
put it out. I wanted to save some for Le-tee. We were gonna celebrate.

The
girl, Flora, had witnessed the murder of Rico Jennings. I knew this because we,
Leticia and me that is, had found her and made her tell what she knew. Well,
Leticia had. She can be a scary woman when she wants to be. She broke hard on
Flora, got up in her face and bumped her in an alley. Flora cried and talked.
She had been out walking with Rico that night, back up on Otis, around the
elementary, when this boy, Marquise Roberts, rolled up on them in a black
Caprice. Marquise and his squad got out the car and surrounded Rico, shoved him
some and shit like that. Flora said it seemed like that was all they was gonna
do. Then Marquis drew an automatic and put three in Rico, one while Rico was on
his feet and two more while Marquise was standing over him. Flora said Marquise
was smiling as he pulled the trigger.

"Ain't
no doubt now, is it?" said Marquise, turning to Flora. "You mine."

Marquise
and them got back in their car and rode off, and Flora ran to her home. Rico
was dead, she explained. Wouldn't do him
no
good if
she stayed at the scene.

Flora
said that she would never talk to the police. Leticia told her she'd never have
to, that as Rico's aunt she just needed to know.

Now
we had a killer and a wit. I could have gone right to Detective Barnes, but I
knew about that anonymous tip line in the District, the Crime Solvers thing. We
decided that Leticia would call and get that number assigned to her, the way
they do, and she would eventually collect the $1,000 reward, which we'd split.
Flora would go into witness security, where they'd move her to far Northeast or
something like that. So she wouldn't get hurt, or be too far from her family,
and Leticia and
me
would get five hundred each. It
wasn't much, but it was more than I'd ever had in my pocket at one time. More
important to me, someday, when Marquise was put away and his boys fell, like
they always do, I could go to my mother and father and tell them that I, Verdon
Coates, had solved a homicide. And it would be worth the wait, just to see the
look of pride on my father's face.

I
got to the row house on Otis where Leticia stayed at. It was on the 600 block,
those low-slung old places they got painted gray. She lived on the first floor.

Inside
the common hallway, I came to her door. I knocked and took off my knit cap and
shook the snow off it, waiting for her to come. The door opened, but only a
crack. It stopped as the chain of the slide bolt went taut. Leticia looked at
me over the chain. I could see dirt tracks on the part of her face that showed,
from where she'd been crying. She was a hard-looking woman, had always been,
even when she was young. I'd never seen her so shook.

"Ain't
you gonna let me in?"

"No."

"What's
wrong with you, girl?"

"I
don't want to see you and you ain't comin' in."

"I
got some nice smoke, Leticia."

"Leave
outta here, Verdon."

I
listened to the bass of a rap thing, coming from anoth apartment. Behind it, a
woman and a man were having an argument.

"What
happened?" I said. "Why you been cryin'?"

"Marquise
came," said Leticia. "Marquise made me cry."

My
stomach dropped some. I tried not to let it show on my face.

"That's
right," said Leticia. "Flora musta told him about our conversation. Wasn't hard
for him to find Rico's aunt."

"He
threaten
you?"

"He
never did, direct. Matter of fact, that boy was smilin' the whole time he spoke
to me." Leticia's lip trembled. "We came to an understandin', Verdon."

"What
he say?"

"He
said that Flora was mistaken. That she wasn't there the night Rico was killed,
and she would swear to it in court. And that if I thought different, I was
mistaken, too."

"You sayin' that you're mistaken, Leticia?"

"That's
right.
I been
mistaken about this whole thing."

"Leticia--"

"I
ain't tryin' to get myself killed for five hundred dollars, Verdon."

"Neither
am I."

"Then
you better go somewhere for a while."

"Why
would I do that?"

Leticia
said nothing.

"You
give me up, Leticia?"

Leticia
cut her eyes away from mine. "Flora," she said, almost a whisper. "She told him
'bout some skinny, older-lookin' dude who was standin' in the alley the day I
took her for bad."

"You
gave me up?"

Leticia
shook her head slowly and pushed the door shut. It closed with a soft click.

I
didn't pound on the door or nothing like that. I stood there stupidly for
sometime, listening to the rumble of the bass and the argument still going
between the woman and man. Then I walked out the building.

The
snow was coming down heavy. I couldn't go home, so I walked toward the avenue
instead.

I
had finished the rest of my vodka, and dropped the bottle to the curb, by the
time I got down to Georgia. A Third District cruiser was parked on the corner,
with two officers inside it, drinking coffee from paper cups. It was late, and
with the snow and the cold there
wasn't
too many
people out. The Spring Laundromat, used to be a Roy Rogers or some shit like
it, was packed with men and women, just standing around, getting out of the
weather. I could see their outlines behind that nicotine-stained glass, most of
them barely moving under those dim lights.

This
time of night, many of the shops had closed. I was hungry, but Morgan's Seafood
had been boarded up for a year
now,
and The Hunger
Stopper, had those good fish sandwiches, was dark inside. What I needed was a
beer, but Giant had locked its doors. I could have gone to the titty bar
between Newton and Otis, but I had been roughed in there too many times.

I
crossed over to the west side of Georgia and walked south. I passed a midget in
a green suede coat
who
stood where he always did,
under the awning of the Dollar General. I had worked there for a couple of
days, stocking shit on shelves.

BOOK: George Pelecanos
10.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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