Shame the Devil (16 page)

“Yes.”

“Donnel Lawton?”

Sun touched the right stem of his rimless glasses. “I knew him by sight, yes.”

“How about the guy who was accused of killing him?”

“Randy Weston? I knew him as well.”

“Better than Lawton?”

“We played together, right where we are standing, a couple of times when we were children. He showed me how to put a spiral
on a football, something my father would not have known. But that was a long time ago. We didn’t speak as adults except when
he was giving me a food order or I was taking it. He showed me respect, nothing more.”

“Was Weston in the life?”

“I’ve heard that both Weston and Donnel Lawton sold drugs. But if they did, it was minor. Neither of them was the kingpin
down here, this much I know. Listen, I’ve already told this to the police.”

“I’m not the police. I’m working for the lawyer defending Randy Weston.”

“I don’t mind cooperating, but I’ve told the police everything I know.”

“All right, I’ll try not to drag this out. A couple of quick questions here…” Stefanos opened the loose-leaf pad on which
he kept his notes. “You told the police you heard gunshots the night of the Lawton murder. That was at what time?”

“Just after nine-thirty at night.”

“How do you know it was nine-thirty?”

“Just
after
nine-thirty. Because we close then, and I had just locked the door.”

“You recognized the sounds as gunshots?”

“Two gunshots, yes. And I know what that popping sound is.”

“When you heard the shots, were you in the lobby or behind the Plexiglas?”

“In the lobby, sweeping up.”

“So you could see clearly through the front window.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see.… After the gunshots, you say you heard rubber laid on the street, then saw a red Ford Torino blow by.”

“That’s right.”

“The boxy version from the sixties or the more rounded version from the early seventies?”

“Rounded.”

“Color?”

“Red.” Stefanos saw a light in Sun’s eyes. “Like I already told the real cops.”

“What about tags?”

“No tags.”

“You mean you couldn’t make out the state?”

“I mean the car had no tags on it. That much I could see.”

“Okay. I’m not gonna keep you, Jerry.” Stefanos handed Sun his card. “Mind if I call you if I think of something I missed?”

“Sure.” Sun’s eyes lit with amusement once again. “Just call information and ask for Hunan Delite.”

Stefanos grinned. “This city’s probably only got, what, a hundred or so of those in the phone book?”

“Yeah, it took a long time for my family to come up with the name.”

“You spelled ‘Delight’ wrong. You aware of that?”

“You’re very funny.”

“I’m trying.”

“The thing is, we barely sell any Chinese food. Some fried fish, and then the rest is steak and cheese. ‘Steak and cheese
everything,’ that’s what I hear all day.”

“Thanks for your help,” said Stefanos.

“That your Dodge parked next to my Lexus?” said Sun.

“Yeah.”

“Those pipes. You put them on yourself?”

“They’re Borlas. I bought ’em through
Hot Rod
and had them installed.”

“Nice.”

“Take care, Jerry.”

Sun waved and walked away.

Stefanos walked across the street to the Brightwood Market and stopped the least threatening looking young man he could find.
He identified himself as an investigator and asked the man if he had been acquainted with either Donnel Lawton or Randy Weston.
The young man shook his head. He asked him if he had heard anything on the street or had any knowledge at all about the murder.
The man walked off without a word.

Stefanos had spoken loudly in hopes of getting a blind response to the names from the other men who stood around outside the
market. He heard an obscenity muttered and looked around: A couple of the men stared at him with smirking eyes. He asked them
as a group if any of them had known Donnel Lawton or Randy Weston. They ignored him completely.

In the year he had worked for Elaine Clay as an investigator, he had been threatened several times in a benign way, slapped
across the face by a woman on the doorstep of her row house, and chased down the street by a clubfooted drunk wielding a butcher
knife. There had been no serious incidents. This was as much due to luck as it was to the precautions he had taken in his
manner and dress.

And there was something else, too. A black man could seriously injure or kill another black man in town and get a tepid response
from the police and the press. When a black attacked a white, though, the cops and the media came down hard on both the perpetrator
and the neighborhood. It had always been that way. As a white investigator in a predominantly black city, Stefanos had an
edge.

There was nothing here for him today. He hadn’t expected there to be. He glanced at the market’s windows and down along the
concrete landscape as if he were looking for something in particular, and then he walked back to his car.

Ronald Weston lived with his mother and younger sister in an apartment on 9th, between Missouri and Peabody, about a mile
northwest of 1st and Kennedy. The radio towers of the Fourth District Police Headquarters rose behind the roofline of the
complex, a half dozen boxy units with screened porches in the rear.

Stefanos parked on 9th. He had phoned Ronald Weston early that morning, and Weston had told him to come on by.

Weston opened the door to the apartment. He was a thin boy, not past his mid-teens, wearing an oversize T-shirt, extrawides,
and unlaced Timberland boots. His ears were too long for his face. He had large brown eyes and crooked teeth. He gave Stefanos
a casual nod, reaching for hard.

“Nick Stefanos. I called.”

“Come on in.”

Stefanos followed him back through a hall. Go-go music grew louder as they entered a living room. A Nintendo 64 was hooked
up to a large-screen television in a cheap hutch set against the wall. Fast-food wrappers littered a glass-top table, and
a Big Gulp soda sat half full amid the wrappers.

A phone rang. Ronald Weston found the cordless beneath a Taco Bell bag. He activated the phone, said something to the caller,
said to Stefanos, “Hold up,” and walked away. Stefanos could see him in the kitchen, hand gesturing as he spoke. From Weston’s
shy smile Stefanos guessed that he was talking to a girl.

Stefanos went to a portable stereo, saw a Northeast Groovers CD atop a nearby stack. He turned the volume down to conversation
level as Weston came back in the room.

“All right, man. Had to talk to this jazzy girl I know. I’m all done with that.”

Stefanos had a seat on the couch and pulled out his pad and a pen. Weston chose a hard-armed chair beside the glass table.
He kept the phone held loosely in his hand.

“So Ronald —”

“Yeah.”

“Like I told you on the phone, your brother Randy’s trial is coming up. We’re still working on his defense, and I need to
ask you some questions.”

“They gonna put me up there on the stand?”

“I don’t think so.”

“’Cause whatever I said,
they’d
say I would lie for my brother, right?”

“Would you?”

“To keep him out of jail? Goddamn right I would.”

“Okay, but do me a favor. Just don’t lie to me today.”

Weston looked Stefanos over. “You get paid, right?”

“Yes.”

“They pay you good?”

Stefanos looked down at his pad. “Your brother — did he deal drugs?”

Weston laughed and shook his head. “Damn, you go right to it, don’t you?”

“Did he?”

“Why you think I’m gonna tell you that?”

“Look, I’m not going to pass on any information that would hurt your brother. Like I told you, I’m working for the woman that’s
defending him. I’m just trying to find out what happened, okay? So let me ask you again: Did Randy deal drugs?”

Weston licked his lips. “He had a little thing goin’ on, yeah.”

“Rock?”

“Uh-uh. Powder. He didn’t fuck with no rock.”

“How big was his operation?”

“Wasn’t no operation, man. He just had a little somethin’ personal goin’, like I said. Little extra on the side to put next
to his other money.”

“What other money? He had a job?”

“No. Not since last year.”

“But he did have his own apartment down the street from here, and a nice car. And a girlfriend, too. So his business must
have been bigger than what you’re describing.”

Weston looked past Stefanos. “He had a couple of younguns runnin’ for him, that’s all. No gunslingers, no kind of drama like
that.”

“Down around First and Kennedy?”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t no thing. Boy name of Forjay runnin’ the shit down there, and Randy always made sure to step out of Forjay’s
way. Randy, he just gettin’ a little bit of it for his own self.”

“Okay. What about Donnel Lawton?”

“I didn’t know him personal.”

“Lawton was a known dealer down in that neighborhood. Did Randy ever talk about him?”

“Not that I know.”

“Witnesses saw your brother and Lawton arguing the day of the murder.”

“Look, Randy was doin’ business down there. Maybe Lawton was lookin’ to shake out on Randy’s strip. Man tries to do you like
that, you got to step
to
him, know what I’m sayin’?”

Stefanos said, “Your brother own a gun?”

“No.”

“Never owned a Beretta ninety-two?”

“He never did own any kind of gun.”

“The cops found a ninety-two in your brother’s apartment. The markings on the slugs taken from Lawton’s corpse matched that
gun.”

“Maybe they did, I ain’t gonna argue it. But if they found the murder gun there then somebody
put
it there and framed my brother up good. My brother was hard when he had to be, but he wasn’t down with no guns.”

“Let’s go on to something else. Your brother’s girlfriend.”

“What about her?” said Weston distastefully.

“I’m talking about Erika Mitchell.”

“I know who you mean. And
fuck
that bitch.”

“You don’t like her.”

“Bitch was with Randy the night Lawton got doomed. Randy told me they went to some movie together down at Union Station.”

“Which show?”

“That Bruce Willis joint, out in space? Randy said it was the nine-forty-five.”

“If that’s true, then Erika could testify that the two of them were there.”

“She could. But now she won’t alibi my brother. She be changin’ her story now, say she wasn’t with him that night.”

“Why would she do that?”

“You need to be askin’ her.”

“I will.”

“And while you’re at it, maybe you ought to be talkin’ to her pops. She live with him out there in Chillum. Randy always had
to pick her up there, get the treatment from her father, like where you be takin’ my little girl and shit. So I know her father
saw the two of them go out together the night Lawton was killed.”

Stefanos made a notation. “One more thing. What kind of car does your brother drive?”

“Late model Legend. Cherry red with limo tints.”

“He ever drive a red Ford Torino?”

“One of those old-time cars?”

“Yes.”

Weston shook his head and pursed his lips. “Naw, man.”

“He know anyone who owns one?”

“Even if he did, Randy wouldn’t be drivin’ no hooptie and shit.”

The phone rang, and Ronald answered it. He said, “See you then, girl,” and cut the connection.

“Your girlfriend?” asked Stefanos, trying to get through Weston’s shell.

“Just some girl I know. She on her way over here now.” Ronald smiled. “Gonna hit it like a girl like it to be hit, too.”

Stefanos rubbed his eyes. He wanted to tell the kid that he didn’t have to prove anything. He wanted to tell him that he was
tired of it, that he just didn’t care.

“What’re you, Ronald? Fifteen?”

“I’m sixteen. Why?”

“No school today, I guess.”

“Half day.”

“Teachers’ meetings or something?”

Ronald grinned. “You caught me, Mr. Investigator. Gonna take me in?”

Stefanos closed his pad. He stood and zipped up his jacket. “Thanks for talking with me. If I have any more questions, I’ll
give you a call.”

Stefanos went down the hall. Weston followed and put a hand around Stefanos’s arm. Stefanos stopped and turned.

“You gonna help my brother? ’Cause my brother can’t do no hard time.”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Look here,” said Weston. “I
know
Randy. My brother didn’t kill nobody, man, for real.”

“I believe you,” said Stefanos.

Outside the apartment building, Stefanos lit a cigarette and crossed the street to his Dodge.

DETECTIVE DAN BOYLE
fired up a cigarette off the dash lighter, cracking his window as he drove his unmarked into Northeast. He dragged hard on
his Marlboro and kept the smoke down in his lungs.

Talking to the Karras guy at the bar had naturally made him think of his own kids. How rough he was on them sometimes, and
how much he loved them. Christ, if anything ever happened to them… How could Karras just sit there quietly like that, eating
his lunch? He guessed that Karras had just learned to live with it and was keeping it buried someplace deep inside. But Boyle
would be crazy if it were him. Maybe this Karras
was
crazy, and no one knew.

Talking with Karras, it had also reminded Boyle that his friend

Bill Jonas had called a couple of days earlier and asked that he drop by. Boyle had a witness to interview out in the Langdon
Park area, and Jonas lived in Brookland, not far off the route. This would be a good day for Boyle to visit Jonas.

Boyle figured that Jonas wanted to talk about the case. That was what they usually discussed during Boyle’s visits. But Boyle
had no new information since his last visit. The Pizza Parlor Murders had been transferred over to a newly formed cold-case
squad, a unit created in part due to citizen outrage at published reports of the department’s extreme number of unsolved homicides.
Now the Feds were involved, too, in an “advisory capacity.” From what Boyle heard, no additional progress had been made.