Shame the Devil (22 page)

“That show runs every Tuesday night. It doesn’t prove I was watching it, or lecturing Weston, on that particular Tuesday night.”

Stefanos made a nonsense note on his pad. Of course it didn’t prove that Mitchell talked to him that Tuesday night. It didn’t
prove shit. He was trying anything now. If Mitchell or his daughter weren’t going to cooperate, then Elaine Clay had no case.

“Let me ask you something.” Stefanos looked up and held Mitchell’s eyes. “If Randy Weston were not a drug dealer who was dating
your daughter, would your memory improve?”

“He is a drug dealer, Stefanos. I was a street cop in D.C. for many years.” Mitchell looked Stefanos over. “A
real
cop. I saw firsthand what people like that do, to individuals, mothers, fathers… to families. When my wife left me, I made
a solemn promise to protect my little girl. The truth is, I don’t really care if that boy goes to jail.”

“Even if he’s innocent?”

“He’s not innocent.”

“But if you knew he was with your daughter at the time of the murder —”

“I’d deny it. And I’d deny this conversation. Cops lie all the time on the stand to get a conviction, you know that. I’ve
done it before. If it means getting that boy away from Erika, I’d lie again.”

Stefanos shut his notebook. “So what makes you different than the ones out there, breaking the law?”

Mitchell’s eyes narrowed. “Say that again?”

Stefanos didn’t repeat it. He stood from his chair. “Do you know where your daughter is so I can contact her?”

“I always know where she is. I drop her at the Fort Totten station at seven-forty-five sharp every morning, and then she goes
off to work. And I pick her up at five-forty-five, the same time, same place, every evening. She’s a stylist at a shop over
in Greenbelt.”

“What shop?”

“You’re gonna have to find that out for yourself.”

“I’m going to talk to her, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Go ahead. She’ll tell you the same thing I have. She doesn’t exactly remember.”

“Right.” Stefanos walked for the door, turned. “By the way. You talked about families. Randy Weston’s got a kid brother, not
a bad kid but on the edge. And Weston’s got a mother, too, works a government job downtown. She’s trying real hard to keep
it together, I’d expect. There’s all sorts of families trying to make it out here. I just thought you’d like to know.”

“You see yourself out?”

“I got it. Thanks for your time.”

Driving south on New Hampshire, Stefanos remembered something Anna Wang had said about the Chinese guys she’d known. He crossed
the District Line and took the Kennedy Street cutoff heading west.

STEFANOS WALKED INTO
the order area of Hunan Delite and went to the lazy Susan below the teardrop holes cut into the Plexiglas. He listened to
the new Usher single coming from the tinny speakers mounted in the lobby while he waited to catch Jerry Sun’s eye. Sun came
forward, and Stefanos placed his license against the glass.

“Stefanos,” said Sun. “I remember. What can I do for you?”

“Do you sell steak and cheese?”

“Very funny. C’mon, man, I got things to do.”

“I need to talk to you. I’ll make it fast.”

Sun made a head motion. Stefanos walked back out the door and around the building. By the time he got there, Sun was leaning
against the Dumpster, cleaning his eyeglasses on his shirt.

“Jerry.”

“Nick!”

“Okay, okay. Listen, here’s the thing: I know this Chinese girl, friend of mine named Anna, waitresses in this place I bartend
for.”

“She sounds real nice. But I’ve got a girlfriend, Stefanos.”

“I don’t think she’d dig you anyway. She doesn’t date Chinese guys. Says they’re more interested in their cars than their
women.”

Sun smiled a little and shrugged.

“So I was thinking,” said Stefanos, “about how you noticed the pipes on my sled.”

“So what?”

“What about that red Torino you saw speeding away from the murder scene? You notice anything more than what you gave me the
first time?”

“Need help, huh?”

“I’m a Mopar man. I don’t know a thing about Fords. You know what they say: You drive a Dodge, you drive in style; drive a
Ford, you’ll walk a mile.”

Sun rolled his eyes. “What you want to know?”

“Anything.”

“Okay,” said Sun. “It was called the Twister Special when it came out. The factory put a decal on the side so you knew; it
was supposed to look like a tornado or something, ran from the front to the rear quarter panels. It was a very fast car. The
stock engine was a four twenty-nine, SCJ.”

Stefanos smiled like David Janssen and scribbled in his notebook. “Goddamn, Jerry. Anything else?”

“Ford only made ninety of that particular car. I’d call that a very limited edition. A car like that, it shouldn’t be so hard
to find.”

“Keep going.”

“I only saw it go by quick, but from what I saw the car was in perfect condition. Like it had been garaged. Or restored.”

Stefanos looked at Sun with admiration. “Why didn’t you tell me the first time around?”

“You didn’t ask. Smart guy like you, I was wondering when you were going to get around to it.”

“That car you saw. You know whose car that was, Jerry?”

“No idea. I’m serious about that, too.”

“Tags?”

“Like I told you before. No tags.”

“I guess Anna was right about you guys.”

“Yeah, I been jacking off to
Motor Trend
since I was nine years old.”

“Doin’ your own viscosity tests, huh?”

“I gotta run, Stefanos.”

“Okay. Say, I’m kinda hungry. How
is
the steak and cheese here, Jerry?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. Tastes like dog shit, you want to know the truth.”

Sun turned and walked back toward the rear kitchen entrance.

“Hey, thanks,” said Stefanos. Sun waved over his shoulder and went through the door.

On Kennedy, Stefanos dropped a quarter and a dime into the pay phone slot. He lit a cigarette, got Elaine’s assistant, waited
for Elaine to get on the line.

“Nick, what’s going on?”

“I talked to Terrence Mitchell. It’s not that he doesn’t remember if Randy and his daughter went out the night of the murder.
He does remember, but he won’t testify to it. He’d rather get that drug dealer out of his daughter’s life than get him off.
He told me straight up that he’d lie.”

“Nice. That means we’re —”

“Fucked. It also means Randy Weston’s innocent. I know that now. And the car thing? The Torino’s real. I got a line on it
from Jerry Sun, the guy who runs the Chinese joint down here in the neighborhood. The car’s a special model, Elaine. We should
be able to track it down, despite the fact that it was out there without tags that night.”

“Give me the details. I’ll get our people to run it through the system.”

Stefanos read off the information Sun had given him.

“This could be what breaks this,” said Elaine. “Nice work.”

“Thanks. In the meantime, I can check with some mechanics. Ford restorationists, specialists. Car like that, they’d remember
it.”

“Hold on a second, Nick.”

Stefanos dragged on his Camel. He double-dragged and watched his smoke dissipate in the wind.

“All right,” said Elaine, “I’m back. Was looking for my address book.… Here it is. Marcus has this friend, Dimitri knows
him, too, works on old Continentals exclusively. Genuine tough guy, a Truck Turner type, has a garage over in the Brookland
area. I’ve got his number right here.”

“What’s his name?”

“Al Adamson,” said Elaine. “Say Marcus hooked you up.”

“There goes Strickland,” said Marcus Clay. “Gonna go right in on Shaq, challenge his wide ass.”

“Man is fearless,” said Dimitri Karras.

The crowd at the MCI Center cheered as Rod Strickland sunk the layup. Karras and Clay slapped each other five.

“Rod,” said Karras with admiration. “Best point guard in the East.”

“Might be the best guard in the NBA, you ask me. The man sees the entire floor. He can dish without telegraphing, and he can
take it to the hole at will. And what I really like is, he’s got the fire. The rest of the Wizards had that fire, we’d hear
the fat lady sing again, you can believe that.”

“Webber can do it.”

“When he wants to,” said Clay, “C. Webb can do it all. That young man’s got more natural ability than I’ve seen on anyone
in a long while. But look right there.”

Webber had dropped away from the rest of the defense and was walking backward, slowly, toward the half-court line.

“He’s always lookin’ to leak out for that fast break,” said Clay, “when he should be crashing those boards.”

“You can’t blame that on Webber entirely. That’s a coaching thing right there.”

Karras clapped at a Calbert Cheaney jumper that made the nylon dance. His elbow knocked Clay’s, causing him to spill beer
on his chin.

“Hey, watch it, man.”

“Sorry.”

“You just spilled about two dollars’ worth of my five-dollar beer.”

“Yeah, good thing you and I never did drink too much. We’d go broke in this place.”

Clay looked around. “It’s beautiful, though, isn’t it? Finally got us our own venue in the city.”

“Like the Garden. And these are good seats.”

“The business pays for them, man. Midcourt, club level. You can’t beat it, and I write it off. If you were to come back to
the company, you’d get a third of the games.”

Karras ignored that and said, “Only thing I miss now is the Washington Bullets.”

“You gonna go on that nostalgia trip again?”

“You wanna tell me why they had to change the name of the team? Because it encouraged violence? Shit, Marcus, basketball jerseys
don’t kill people —”

“They changed the name to
sell
basketball jerseys, man.”

“It’s like go-go music, Marcus.”

“Now you’re gonna get on that.”

“I’m serious. Every time someone gets shot within a hundred yards of a go-go concert, the
Post
dredges up their old warhorse about how the music is related to the violence. Getting the public all paranoid about go-go,
it’s ridiculous. For what? So they can make a case for taking away the one thing the young people of this city can still call
their own?”

“I hear you, man. And so does that family in front of us.”

“Nobody tried to stop rock and roll because of Altamont. Or after the stampede when the Who played Cincinnati.”

“
The Kids Are All Dead
tour?”

“
The Kids Are All Right.”

“Gotta excuse me, I been out of the music business for a while. You want a hot dog or something?”

“Yeah, okay. Can I borrow twenty dollars?”

They watched another five minutes of game. Tracy Murray hit two free throws to further the Wizards’ lead.

“The shots at the line are gonna win this game,” said Clay. “The Lakers have made half of theirs. We made damn near all of
ours. It’s like I’m always telling Marcus Jr.: fundamentals.”

“How’s M. J. doin’, man?”

“Good. Made the honor roll at Wilson. You’ll see him at my birthday thing. You are coming, right?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Course, M. J. would have liked to have made the game tonight. Wanted to check out Kobe.”

“He’ll see him — the kid’s got a long career ahead of him.”

“He’s got, what, four points this evening? The way he’s playin’ tonight, I’d say the young emperor has no clothes.”

“The Lakers are a year away in every department. Look at their talent. Van Exel, Horry. Eddie Jones is
bad
. And Kobe Bryant is only gonna get better.”

“Anyway, I told M. J. that I had to save the Lakers game for my boy Dimitri. ’Cause I know how much you like the Lakers.”
Clay side-glanced Karras. “Goin’ all the way back to Gail Goodrich, when you modeled your game after his.”

“Aw, shit, now you’re gonna start that again. I told you a hundred times, my game was always closer to Walt Frazier’s.”

“Well, you used to wear those Clydes of his, anyway.”

“And I could drive the paint like him, too.”

Clay and Karras laughed and shook hands. Clay squeezed Karras’s shoulder.

“It’s good to see you, man,” said Clay.

“Good to see you, too.”

“You look different. Happier or something. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right. My new job has helped. And so has time.”

“You still seeing the bartender’s wife?”

“Once a week for now. That’s helped as well.”

“What about Lisa?”

“I called her late the other night.… I don’t know why. It was a mistake. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s
going
to change.” Karras finished his warm beer and put the plastic cup down on the concrete. “I know now that there’s two kinds
of people in this world: those who’ve lost a child and those who haven’t. I’ll never be whole again, Marcus. I’ve accepted
that.”

“But you got to keep trying.”

“I am.” Karras wiped his mouth dry with a napkin. “Speaking of work, I’ve got this friend down at the Spot, dishwasher named
Darnell. Smart guy, a good cook, and a really good worker. I think he’s a good candidate to open his own small business. He’s
not looking for a bar, just the food side of things.”

“I’ll talk to him, that’s what you want.”

“He lacks confidence, I think.”

“When the time’s right, then. Maybe you could come in with him, make it less painful for him. Be a good way for you to ease
back on into the company, too. Clarence was just sayin’ the other day how we could use your people skills again.”

“Like I said, Marcus. I need a little time.”

O’Neal fought three defenders under the bucket and came up for a monster dunk. The hometown crowd had to applaud his effort.

“Now there’s a guy whose game has come around,” said Karras.

“You’re not lyin’. Shaq is the real Raging Bull.”

Karras looked over at his friend. Marcus had put on a few pounds, but it was natural weight gain and he kept it hard. His
closely cropped Afro was salted with gray, and there were gray flecks in his thick black mustache.